Preamble

The House met at Eleven o'clock

PRAYERS

[Mr. SPEAKER in the Chair]

MESSAGES FROM THE QUEEN

IMMUNITIES AND PRIVILEGES

The COMPTROLLER OF THE HOUSEHOLD reported Her Majesty's Answer to the Address, as follows:

I have received your Address praying that the European Launcher Development Organisation (Immunities and Privileges) Order 1965 be made in the form of the draft laid before your House.

I will comply with your request.

IMMUNITIES AND PRIVILEGES

The COMPTROLLER OF THE HOUSEHOLD reported Her Majesty's Answer to the Address, as follows:

I have received your Address praying that the European Space Research Organisation (Immunities and Privileges) Order 1965 be made in the form of the draft laid before your House.

I will comply with your request.

Oral Answers to Questions — WALES

Iron Ore Ports

Mr. Gibson-Watt: asked the Secretary of State for Wales what further recommendations he has received from Richard Thomas and Baldwins Limited with regard to the iron ore ports; and whether he will make a statement.

The Under-Secretary of State for Wales (Mr. Harold Finch): None. My right hon. Friend has at present nothing to add to the information given during the Welsh Grand Committee debate on 14th July.

Mr. Gibson-Watt: Perhaps I may first refer to the fact that there are hon. Members from both sides of the House receiving bardic honours at the Welsh National Eisteddfodd today—the first time that this has ever happened to so many Members of Parliament. I am sure the House would wish to congratulate them.
With reference to the Question, if and when we do have a report from Richard Thomas and Baldwins, will it be possible to debate the matter further before a final decision is taken?

Mr. Finch: I feel sure that there will be an opportunity for a debate, as we recognise that this is a very important matter. I can assure the hon. Member that Richard Thomas and Baldwins want to decide as soon as possible, but it is not likely to be before October, although we hope that it will not be delayed long after.

New Town (Mid-Wales)

Mr. Gibson-Watt: asked the Secretary of State for Wales when he expects to receive the report of his consultants on the proposed new town in Mid-Wales.

Mr. Finch: By 31st December next.

Mr. Gibson-Watt: In view of the news given last Tuesday, does the Secretary of State still consider this as a feasible project, or does he think that in the circumstances in which we find ourselves, plans for a new town in Wales are virtually pie in the sky?

Mr. Finch: I cannot agree with the hon. Member. I think that we are quite confident that a new town will be established in Mid-Wales in the near future. As the hon. Member knows, the matter is in the hands of consultants, and we hope to get some definite report by 31st December.

Road Programme

Mr. Box: asked the Secretary of State for Wales whether he will make a statement on the road programme in Wales.

Mr. Finch: My right hon. Friend is not yet in a position to make an announcement about the Welsh road programme as a whole up to 1971. The Chancellor's statement will not affect


schemes already started. Nor will it affect schemes due to start in the next six months but which are for development districts or areas of high unemployment, or for providing access to ports, or are needed to complete or extend projects already started.

Mr. Box: I thank the Under-Secretary of State for that information, which is slightly encouraging. One recognises that there are economic factors that may cause delay in the further programme. Will the hon. Gentleman ensure that his right hon. Friend keeps the situation very much before his Cabinet colleagues, as the road programme has considerable significance for the future economy of Wales?

Mr. Finch: I appreciate the hon. Gentleman's remarks, and I can assure him that I will keep in close touch with my right hon. Friend and watch these developments as much as possible. If the hon. Member has any scheme particularly in mind and will communicate with I will endeavour to answer him.

Mr. Gibson-Watt: Can the hon. Gentleman say anything specific in regard to the road programme east to west? Has he any particular announcement to make about this?

Mr. Finch: No, I have no statement to make at the moment. As I have said, the whole programme up to 1971 is under consideration. No doubt, if the hon. Member puts down a Question for Answer after the Summer Recess, we shall consider it.

Mr. Scott-Hopkins: How much of the road programme has to be postponed in Wales because of the Chancellor's statement? Are there to be any postponements at any particular time in Wales?

Mr. Finch: It may be postponed, but at present that will not affect present plans. It is impossible to say, at the moment, what may be postponed.

Welsh Affairs (Information)

Mr. Box: asked the Secretary of State for Wales what plans he has for giving increased information in the future about Welsh affairs and the work of his Department.

Mr. Finch: The former Welsh Office of the Central Office of Information has

become the Information Division of the Welsh Office and my right hon. Friend has asked it to give the fullest possible information about the work of his Department and about Welsh affairs generally.

Mr. Box: Is the hon. Gentleman aware that many people feel that Wales is faring worse rather than better since the appointment of his right hon. Friend? For example, is the hon. Gentleman aware that a day for discussion of Welsh affairs for the first time for many years has been relegated to the dregs of this Session? Is this not derisory treatment of the new approach to Welsh affairs which we were promised prior to the election?

Mr. Finch: We used to have complaints at one time because Welsh affairs were debated at the end of the Session before the Summer Recess and left to the fag end of the Session, but now we shall have a day to debate them as soon as we come back before the Session ends. On the general point, if there is any information that we can supply to the hon. Member. we shall do so.

Oral Answers to Questions — EDUCATION AND SCIENCE

Royal Shakespeare Company (Accounts)

Sir Knox Cunningham: asked the Secretary of State for Education and Science if he will make it a condition of the next grant to the Arts Council that they should require the accounts of the Royal Shakespeare Company to be set out in such a manner as to show the profit and loss of their theatres in Stratford-on-Avon and London, respectively.

The Joint Under-Secretary of State for Education and Science (Miss Jennie Lee): No, Sir.

Sir Knox Cunningham: Is the hon. Lady not aware that this company has been producing excellent Shakespeare plays at Stratford-on-Avon year after year and that only since it opened in London has a subsidy from public funds been paid—£40,000 last year doubled to £80,000 this year? With this in mind and the necessity to reduce public expenditure, is it not reasonable that Sir Fordham Flower should prepare his accounts to show where the taxpayers' money is going? Will the hon. Lady ask him to do so?

Miss Lee: I agree that there must always be public accountability for public funds, but I would not dream of interfering in the slightest extent with the way in which the Arts Council allocates its money and the companies it chooses to support.

Direct Grant Schools

Mr. Dudley Smith: asked the Secretary of State for Education and Science if he will make a statement on the future of direct grant schools, in view of his policy of achieving an integrated system of state and public schools.

The Secretary of State for Education and Science (Mr. Anthony Crosland): I have already made suggestions in my recent circular on secondary education which I hope will encourage a closer integration of direct grant schools with local schemes of comprehensive organisation.

Mr. Smith: Is it not the right hon. Gentleman's avowed intention eventually to destroy direct grant schools? Would it not be better to end this double-talk so that those responsible for the administration of direct grant schools may know exactly where they stand?

Mr. Crosland: My avowed intention is clearly set out in the circular, which states:
The Secretary of State looks to both local education authorities and the governors of direct grant schools to consider ways of maintaining and developing this co-operation in the context of the new policy of comprehensive education.
What I hope will happen, and what is beginning to happen in some parts of the country now, is that local education authorities and the schools will start discussions to see how these schools can fit into the comprehensive system.

Sir E. Boyle: Does the reference in the circular to changes in curricula mean that the Minister has in mind nonselective direct grant schools as to the level of education? Will he bear in mind that many people who are by no means diehards on secondary school organisation none the less feel real difficulties about keeping grammar school traditions if all the very finest of the grammar schools are to disappear as separate institutions, and that the anxieties are particularly

strong in the case of direct grant schools?

Mr. Crosland: I have taken the view from the start that it is quite impossible to lay down a single national policy for the future of direct grant schools partly because they vary enormously—some are large and some small, some are denominational and some are undenominational—but, as the right hon. Member is almost certainly aware, discussions are going on to see whether the direct grant schools by certain changes, for instance in age of entry and standards of attainment, might be able to fit in with the reorganisation.

Mr. Merlyn Rees: Will my right hon. Friend not agree that in many direct grant schools the range of ability is very much broader than in maintained grammar schools and that therefore they are appropriate to provide some sort of comprehensive education?

Mr. Crosland: Yes, Sir.

Football Matches (Television)

Mr. Murray: asked the Secretary of State for Education and Science, in view of the recent decision of the Football Association not to allow live televising of any football matches next season except the Football Association Cup, if he will reconsider his decision to make a grant from public funds to certain Football League clubs for World Cup matches.

The Joint Under-Secretary of State for Education and Science (Mr. Denis Howell): No, Sir. The purpose behind the Government aid to the Football League clubs in question is to ensure that the accommodation and facilities at the grounds of those clubs are up to the required standard for the World Cup matches. The grants have no relation to the policy of the Football Association in relation to live television. In any event, the World Cup games themselves will be televised live and there is an understanding to this effect between the Government and the football authorities.

Mr. Murray: While thanking my hon. Friend for that reply, may I ask him whether he will informally request the Football Association to reconsider this question of televising football matches? As there are long-term benefits which the Football Association will receive


from a grant from public funds, would it not be in the interest of the public, particularly old-age pensioners, the sick and infirm, if they could enjoy the benefits of seeing football matches on television?

Mr. Howell: This is a matter for the Football Association, but one cannot escape the fact that when events of this kind are televised live it has an almost catastrophic effect on the gates. And the question of maintaining the gates and the atmosphere of sporting occasions is very much in the mind of the Association; but this is the Association's problem, not mine.

Mr. Walden: Has my hon. Friend any information to give the House about the degree of foreign interest in these events, particularly on the advance sales of tickets?

Mr. Howell: Yes, there is a tremendous amount of interest. The Football Association has already sold a quarter of a million tickets, and it is particularly heartening to find the tremendous amount of inquiry from the U.S.A., Canada, Central America and South American countries. It rather looks as if this will be a winner in attracting visitors to this country.

Mr. Park: Does not my hon. Friend agree that one of the reasons for the decline in attendance at football matches is the standard of facilities provided, especially sanitary facilities, which very often are inadequate and out of date? Is this not the reason for a decline rather than the televising of matches?

Mr. Howell: There is a lot of truth in that. These are exactly the sort of problems to be looked at in deciding how the seven grounds in question should raise their accommodation standards.

Sailing and Yachting Clubs

Mr. Murray: asked the Secretary of State for Education and Science what requests he has had from sailing and yachting clubs for financial assistance; and what action he has taken.

Mr. Denis Howell: Since January 1964, 33 applications for grant have been received from sailing and yachting clubs.

Twenty-three grants have been made, totalling £44,581. One application has been rejected and nine are under consideration.

Mr. Murray: Would my hon. Friend consider whether enough publicity is given to the fact that grants are available, particularly as sailing and yachting on the Thames in the Gravesend area has a great local appeal?

Mr. Howell: Not for the next six months.

Deaf Children, East Kent

Mr. Boston: asked the Secretary of State for Education and Science if he is satisfied with the provision for the education and training of deaf children in east Kent, in particular in the Faversham constituency area; and if he will make a statement.

Mr. Denis Howell: The general shortage of teachers of the deaf impedes the full development of services for deaf children in many areas. I am not aware of special difficulties in east Kent, where there is a boarding school for deaf pupils. Officers of the Department will be meeting representatives of the universities of Manchester and London later this year to discuss the need for more teacher training places.

Mr. Boston: Does my hon. Friend agree that one of the difficulties is that, whilst residential training may be needed for some severe cases, it is nevertheless important, particularly for psychological reasons, that the children should be near their home environment? Will he therefore see whether there is a case for extending day facilities, especially since the residential facilities are a long distance away from some places?

Mr. Howell: Fortunately, the small numbers of deaf children make it imperative that they are given specialist training together, which very often rules out day school training. The educational advantages of giving them whole-time specialist education are overwhelming, although I am happy to tell my hon. Friend that there is increasing co-operation between these schools and ordinary secondary modern and other schools in their localities.

Teachers' Superannuation (Earnings Rule)

Mr. Patrick Jenkin: asked the Secretary of State for Education and Science whether he will take steps to modify the teachers' superannuation scheme so as to abolish or relax the earnings rule for teachers over 70 years of age who continue teaching.

The Minister of State, Department of Education and Science (Mr. R. E. Prentice): No, Sir. The present arrangements are in line with those that apply to other public service superannuation schemes.

Mr. Jenkin: Does not the Minister of State recognise that this operates as a very considerable disincentive to older teachers continuing to teach in the profession? Their services are very valuable in reducing the size of classes, particularly in primary schools. Does not the hon. Gentleman recognise also that the public pension provision is way out of line with what applies in most private pension schemes, where no reduction is made in pension if the employee goes on working after pensionable age?

Mr. Prentice: Yes, I have much sympathy with that point of view, although, if one were going to make a change, one would make it at retirement age, presumably, not at 70, as suggested in the Question. Even if a change were made, there would still be a difficulty in that this would have implications for public service pensions in general.

Mr. James Johnson: Would not my hon. Friend agree that most teachers, if not all teachers, who have reached the age of 70 do not wish to do any more teaching? What they want is a decent pension scheme which has some approximation to the cost of living.

Mr. Prentice: Yes. This relates to the question of reviewing public service pensions, which is rather wider than the Question on the Order Paper.

Technical Colleges

Mr. Lubbock: asked the Secretary of State for Education and Science if he is satisfied that enough places will be available at technical colleges to accommodate the additional students who will

be taking courses as a result of the Industrial Training Act; and if he will make a statement.

Mr. Prentice: In so far as it is possible to foresee the additional demands for further education courses which will result from the establishment of industrial training boards, I think that it will be possible to meet them.

Mr. Lubbock: Has the Minister of State had an opportunity of studying the resolution passed at the Annual Conference of the Association of Education Committees stressing the importance of ensuring that adequate building resources are available to meet the developing needs of technical colleges in relation to industrial training? Therefore, does not the hon. Gentleman think that the restrictions recently imposed by the Chancellor of the Exchequer in respect of capital expenditure should not apply in this sector?

Mr. Prentice: I have seen the resolution and agree with it. Clearly, the restrictions recently announced are serious restrictions which will have some effect, although we are of the opinion at the moment that they will have less relative effect on this sector than perhaps elsewhere. Technical college building as a whole has increased recently. There is some difficulty in actually getting the projects started on the ground, so that the impact of the Chancellor's announcements will have less effect here in practice than one would think at first sight.

Sir E. Boyle: Following our debate 30 hours ago on this matter, may I put this question to the Minister of State? If in the case of some authority there is likely to be very heavy pressure of numbers following the Industrial Training Act, I ask the Minister of State not to rule out the possibility of advancing one or two individual starting dates before the six months has come to an end. Would not the hon. Gentleman agree that constantly in the past when a case for "roofs over heads" has proved overwhelming, whether in the case of schools or technical colleges, this has been done by advancing a project from one programme to another? It would be rather absurd to take too rigorous a view of this merely on economic grounds, bearing


in mind that this is the aspect of education which most directly affects economic efficiency.

Mr. Prentice: I do not think that the right hon. Gentleman will expect me to make a unilateral departure from the Statement of my right hon. Friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer in answer to a supplementary question. It is true that the impact of demand for day release places resulting from the Industrial Training Act will vary locally. Therefore, the general confidence we have over the country may not be reflected in every locality. We shall watch this situation very carefully and do anything we possibly can.

Mr. Freeson: Would my hon. Friend consider another way of helping in this matter? In certain areas, instead of initiating new building schemes, could not the Ministry encourage the technical college authorities to purchase or to lease disused or for-sale factory premises and the like, bearing in mind that the Statement of my right hon. Friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer was on this score directly related to the existing strains on the building industry and this would obviate the difficulty?

Mr. Prentice: Yes. The kind of arrangements my hon. Friend mentions clearly are second-best arrangements, but they will be necessary in relation to technical colleges and perhaps other educational institutions, and we rely on the authorities concerned to explore all these possibilities carefully in relation to the demand.

Religious Education

Mr. Newens: asked the Secretary of State for Education and Science if he will review the provisions governing religious education in State schools.

Mr. Crosland: No, Sir.

Mr. Newens: Is my right hon. Friend aware of the widespread dissatisfaction which exists among both modern churchmen and humanists at present regulations governing religious education in schools, which often result in teachers being placed in the position of teaching what they do not themselves believe? Is he aware that in some schools it would be impossible to carry out the requirements

of the system if all the teachers who desired to do so availed themselves of the conscience clause? Does not my right hon. Friend recognise that this can do considerable damage to religious education, if it is being taught by people who do not themselves accept what they are teaching?

Mr. Crosland: I thought that my hon. Friend was referring in his Question to the actual statutory provisions. If he is referring to the content of courses, I entirely agree with him that there is a great deal of dissatisfaction, and indeed a great ferment of argument, as to the content, both in the denominations themselves and in the teacher-training colleges and elsewhere. As far as I am aware, this discussion which is going on has not yet led to any consensus view as to particular changes which might be made. Until some consensus view has emerged out of the discussion which is now going on, I do not think that any action on my part would be called for.

Sir H. Legge-Bourke: Whilst recognising the difficulty of dealing with this matter in question and answer, may I ask the right hon. Gentleman if it is not a fact that very great efforts are being made by the denominations involved to work out a sensible and cohesive view on this matter? Will the right hon. Gentleman give an assurance that no change will be made until he has had the fullest possible consultation with all concerned?

Mr. Crosland: I can certainly give that assurance.

Mr. Maxwell: Will my right hon. Friend bear in mind that teachers, pupils and parents are very disturbed that the teaching of religion in schools is not in conformity with what children need? I appreciate that this is a very ticklish matter, but will my right hon. Friend tell the House what he can do to induce the various denominations to give some practical effect to bringing in a new curriculum and a better way of teaching religion than is being done at present, which is much more for the form than what is actually needed?

Mr. Crosland: There is nothing that I can do or wish to do in this matter. The fact is, as my hon. Friend mentioned, that a great deal of thought is being given to the question of the curriculum. Almost


everybody agrees that as now taught the subject is unsatisfactory in relation to the modes and ideas of today. A great deal of thought is already being given to this. Until this has emerged in some kind of consensus, I would not myself take any initiative in the matter.

Sir E. Boyle: Is it not a fact that a very wide range of opinion, both Christian and humanist, is concerned with the importance of religious instruction and the agreed syllabus justifying itself as a curriculum subject and also the agreed syllabus being suitable for older teen-agers? A great deal of thought is being devoted to this at the moment. Would the Secretary of State accept that we on this side fully agree that it would be wrong to take decisions on this subject until these thoughts have matured more than they have at present?

Mr. Crosland: Yes, Sir.

University Students, Scotland

Mr. Edward M. Taylor: asked the Secretary of State for Education and Science if he will give the numbers of students attending universities in Scotland during each of the past five years.

Mr. Crosland: As the information requested involves a table of figures, I will, with permission, circulate it in the OFFICIAL REPORT. The figures rise from about 18,500 in 1960 to over 22,600 in October 1964.

Mr. Taylor: Would the Minister accept that there are increasing worries on both sides of the House that if this is the rate of increase we shall be turning away large numbers by 1970? Is he aware that these worries have been increased by his noble Friend in another place when he indicated yesterday that the Robbins estimate for 1975 would be achieved by 1970? Could the right hon. Gentleman give some indication of the extent to which Scotland will be exempt from these cuts? Will it be only those universities which are actually in the development areas that will be excluded?

Mr. Crosland: On the last part of the supplementary Question, Aberdeen, Glasgow and Dundee will be totally exempt from the cuts. On the first part of the question, there is, of course, bound to be anxiety whether we can accommodate not just the Robbins figures but people be-
yond those figures who fulfil the Robbins criterion and are qualified and wish to have higher education. All I can say is that we are determined to fulfil this requirement.

The information is as follows:
The total numbers of full-time students attending university institutions in Scotland during each of the past five years are as follows:


Academic Year



1960–61
18,529


1961–62
19,433


1962–63
20,573


1963–64
21,921


1964–65 (provisional)
22,674


In the course of the academic year 1964–65 the Glasgow College of Commerce has been merged in the University of Strathclyde and the Heriot-Watt College, Edinburgh, was added to the University Grants Committee grant list in accordance with the recommendations of the Robbins Report. The figures given in the table are exclusive of the number of students added by these two institutions.

Comprehensive Education

Mr. Evelyn King: asked the Secretary of State for Education and Science if, following the issue of the appropriate circular, he will now estimate the cost of introducing a system of comprehensive education throughout England and Wales.

Mr. Crosland: I have nothing to add to the reply which I gave the hon. Member on 1st July.

Mr. King: Will the right hon. Gentleman recall that when he gave me that Answer he replied that he would hope to be able to give the figures as soon as his circular had been issued? It has now been issued. Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that among those of us on this side of the House who are not altogether unsympathetic to comprehensive schools it is considered preposterous to say that they cannot be costed? Either we must have some order of priorities or some knowledge of what this gigantic scheme will cost. Is he aware that it will do nothing to help his policy to seek to conceal the figures?

Mr. Crosland: On the first point, one cannot give figures a few weeks after the comprehensive circular has gone out, because it asks the authorities to produce schemes for going comprehensive. The time which it will take for a number of authorities to do this will be considerable and until replies come in we


will have nothing based on the comprehensive circular. Even so, I must stress the point once again that one cannot isolate the cost of comprehensive organisation from other costs in the educational system. For example, when a local authority decides to replace two small slum schools by one large comprehensive school, is that cost to be put down to comprehensive reorganisation or to the normal process of improving the schools system? One cannot isolate the one from the other.

Mr. Merlyn Rees: Would not my right hon. Friend agree that a more appropriate investigation would be into the cost of not applying comprehensive education?

Mr. Crosland: I entirely agree, I made the point on the last occasion when we discussed this matter that the cost of going comprehensive, such as it is, even if it cannot be measured, will be certainly less than the cost to the country now of the wastage of talent due to maintaining the 11-plus examination.

John Innes Institute

Mr. Scott-Hopkins: asked the Secretary of State for Education and Science if he will now make a statement concerning the future move of the John Innes Institute to Norwich; whether the terms of the original bequest are being carried out in respect of the giving of direct horticultural training to student gardeners; and what he intends to do with the laboratories on the existing site which were completed four years ago at a cost of £150,000 of public money.

Mr. Prentice: The matters to which the hon. Member refers were fully discussed in the debate on the Consolidated Fund Bill which is reported in the OFFICIAL REPORT for 4th August. I do not think I can usefully add anything to what was said then.

Mr. Scott-Hopkins: Will the Minister of State realise that he did not mention the reply to this Question at all when he replied to the debate 30 hours ago? Would he now do so? On the question of the cost of the laboratories and glasshouses there, can he give an assurance to the House that when these are sold they will be used properly and if possible for research, employing the equipment

which was given and which was very expensive?

Mr. Prentice: As I understand, the trustees have put up for sale the premises which will be vacated. I have no further information on that point. I promised to write to an hon. Member who raised this subject in debate on the night before last, and give him what information I could obtain on that aspect.

Part-Time Teachers (Children)

Sir E. Errington: asked the Secretary of State for Education and Science whether he will seek to make provision for the children of part-time teachers to be accommodated and supervised whilst their parents are engaged in teaching.

Mr. Denis Howell: My right hon. Friend has asked local education authorities to give priority for admission to their nursery schools and classes to the children of qualified married women teachers where this would enable them to return to service. Neither he nor local education authorities have power to make provision for children too young to attend nursery schools or classes.

Sir E. Errington: Is the hon. Gentleman aware that there are many places where there are schools but there are no nurseries? With a view to ensuring that we have as many part-time teachers as possible, will the hon. Gentleman consider providing some financial incentive where married teachers have to leave their own children with personal friends?

Mr. Howell: I am not quite sure what the hon. Gentleman means, but I have said repeatedly, and so has my right hon. Friend, that local authorities should be encouraged to establish nursery classes with priorities for teachers' children if this will bring married women back to teaching. Anything that we can do to that end will be done.

Sir E. Errington: Will the hon. Gentleman please answer my question? Will financial assistance be given to teachers to enable them to remunerate friends who will look after their children?

Mr. Howell: Certainly not. We could not give extra financial assistance to married teachers with children. It would be completely contrary to all the principles of administration.

Mr. Maxwell: Is not that a rather complacent reply, having regard to the fact that we are desperately short of teachers and we can only recruit them from among married teachers? As the shortage is really desperate, will my hon. Friend look at this matter again? It may be against some administrative principle, but we need to educate our children and we need teachers to do that.

Mr. Howell: There is nothing complacent about urging married women to return to teaching and urging local authorities to provide special classes for their children when this can be done, but when we are dealing with teachers' salaries, one cannot ask the House of Commons for something to be done which completely undermines collective bargaining. This is what my hon. Friend the Member for Buckingham (Mr. Maxwell) and the hon. Member for Aldershot (Sir E. Errington) are asking.

Sir E. Errington: asked the Secretary of State for Education and Science what is his policy towards part-time teachers, who have children below school age, having those children with them in classrooms whilst they are teaching.

Mr. Denis Howell: My right hon. Friend regards this as a matter for the local education authority.

Sir E. Errington: Are the Government prepared to give some guidance in a matter of this importance.

Mr. Howell: It would be almost impossible to give generalised guidance, but I am prepared to go a little further and say that if a local education authority feels that such arrangements would not interfere with the general teaching of the class, the Government would be very happy to accept the local authority's assurance on that point.

Race Relations

Mr. Hunt: asked the Secretary of State for Education and Science whether he will publish a series of posters designed to promote better racial understanding for use in schools within areas of high immigrant population.

Mr. Denis Howell: No, Sir. There is a great variety of information material, including posters, already available to the schools about the Commonwealth

and about particular Commonwealth countries.

Mr. Hunt: Is the hon. Gentleman aware that my Question related not to the Commonwealth but to race relations? Is he aware that on a recent visit to the United States I and a number of other hon. Members saw a number of posters very effectively used in the city of Philadelphia to this effect? Would not the hon. Gentleman agree that while sometimes it is difficult to persuade older people to change their attitudes of intolerance and prejudice it is most important that similar attitudes should not be allowed to develop among the younger generation? This is what I am asking the hon. Gentleman to do.

Mr. Howell: I was not aware that the hon. Gentleman recently visited Philadelphia. I am glad to hear it, and if he brought back anything useful I should certainly like to see him and talk it over with him. Generally speaking, it is felt by people engaged in education that posters of this sort might conceivably have the opposite effect of what it is intended. I assure the House that the entire teaching profession, so far as I can see, are determined to encourage the right attitude of mind among all their pupils, irrespective of colour or race.

Mr. Woodhouse: Would not the hon. Gentleman agree that most children are quite unconscious of the existence of racial distinctions until the idea is put into their heads by their elders? Without knowing exactly what my hon. Friend the Member for Bromley (Mr. Hunt) has in mind, may I say that my own instinct is rather to agree with what the hon. Gentleman has said about the undesirability of attracting attention to distinctions of this kind?

Mr. Howell: I entirely endorse those sentiments, which are borne out by my personal experience with my own children who attend a school where there is a large number of immigrants. There is absolutely no racial prejudice in such cases until it is injected from outside.

Sir E. Boyle: But, whatever one's views on the merits of this particular suggestion, what efforts is the hon. Gentleman's Department making to ensure that it has knowledge of all that is being done in the United States on this subject? Is it


not most important that we in Britain should be well advised of every type of effort made to solve this problem in countries overseas?

Mr. Howell: Certainly. My right hon. Friend and I recently had discussions with people from the United States concerned with the problem, and the question which the right hon. Gentleman has asked will encourage us to make further inquiries in this regard.

Teaching Machines

Mr. Patrick Jenkin: asked the Secretary of State for Education and Science what progress he has made in promoting the increased use of programmed teaching machines in school for those subjects for which the use of such teaching aids is appropriate.

Mr. Prentice: I would refer the hon. Member to the reply given by my right hon. Friend on 24th June to my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Warrington (Mr. W. T. Williams).

Mr. Jenkin: I thank the Minister for that reply, but will not he agree that there is an increasing place in education for the use of teaching machines, particularly in those subjects in which it is simply a matter of learning by rote and there is no question of attempting any sort of aesthetic understanding or knowledge of a sense of values? Cannot subjects like primary mathematics, elementary science and so forth, with great advantage, be taught well and more swiftly with teaching machines?

Mr. Prentice: I agree in general terms with what the hon. Gentleman says so long as we bear in mind that this has to be done against the background of proper research, which we are now financing in a number of centres, and, of course, with the consent of the teaching profession. Teachers must themselves be involved in it and introduce the use of teaching machines as an aid to teaching in a way which fits in with other established principles of teaching. This we are encouraging, and expansion is taking place for the reason which the hon. Gentleman has indicated.

Mr. Walden: Does not my hon. Friend consider that the suggestion made by the right hon. Member for Birmingham,

Handsworth (Sir E. Boyle), with reference to Question No. 26, about watching American experience is thoroughly appropriate here as well and we might well do more to study what is being done in this matter in the United States?

Mr. Prentice: Yes, Sir. We have established a research and documentation centre for programmed learning in Birmingham which is studying, among other things, what is being done in the United States and other countries where progress has been made.

Association Football (Inquiry)

Mr. Conlan: asked the Secretary of State for Education and Science, what progress has been made with the comprehensive inquiry into the future of football and the problems which beset it; if the inquiry will be in public; whether, in addition to the Football Association and the Football League, all bodies and persons interested in the future well being of football will have the opportunity to present evidence; and if he will make a statement.

Mr. Denis Howell: The proposed inquiry had to take second place to the problem of organising facilities for the World Cup games, but I am consulting the various football authorities on the desirability of an inquiry and upon its form if one is established. I have not contemplated a public inquiry, which would be unusual in a case of this kind, but all bodies and persons interested in the well-being of football would have the opportunity to give evidence if the inquiry is set up.

Mr. Conlan: I thank my hon. Friend for that reply, but is he aware that many Association Football clubs are anxious to make representations to such an inquiry, and will he ensure, in spite of the difficulties in relation to the World Cup to which he refers, that there will be no undue delay in instituting an inquiry?

Mr. Howell: I am in communication with all the bodies concerned about the possibility and desirability of such an inquiry. I was not aware that a lot of people were anxious to give evidence—one or two have written to me—but, of course, if an inquiry is established, it will be possible for anyone to give evidence who wishes to do so.

Mr. James Johnson: There is also the Parliamentary Sports Committee. Could my hon. Friend get in touch with that?

Mr. Howell: I am constantly receiving advice from the Parliamentary Sports Committee. Should it wish to give advice also to an independent body, I could arrange for that to be done.

Oral Answers to Questions — HOME DEPARTMENT

Immigrants

Mr. Longden: asked the Secretary of State for the Home Department what conclusions the Mountbatten Mission, which is discussing with Commonwealth governments means of regulating the flow of immigrants into this country, has come as to the feasibility and desirability of making health checks in the country of origin.

The Minister of State, Home Office (Miss Alice Bacon): The report of the Mountbatten Mission will not be published. As regards health checks in the immigrant's country of origin, I would refer the hon. Member to the statement by my right hon. Friend the Lord President of the Council on Monday and to the White Paper, Cmnd. 2739, published the same day.

Mr. Longden: I thank the hon. Lady for that reply. She will realise that this Question has been overtaken by events. It was put down originally because it seemed absurd, if a health check was necessary at all, that it should not be made before a man set out on his journey.

Miss Bacon: I understand that, and I appreciate what the hon. Gentleman has said. He will now know what the position is.

Oral Answers to Questions — INTERNATIONAL NUCLEAR FORCE (ASIA)

Mr. Eldon Griffiths: asked the Prime Minister what plans he has for an international nuclear force in Asia.

The Prime Minister (Mr. Harold Wilson): I have nothing to add to previous statements on this subject.

Mr. Griffiths: Bearing in mind the troubled situation in the Far East and

the grave threat to India posed by China's decision to become a nuclear Power, will the Prime Minister be good enough to answer these further questions? First, when Mr. Patrick Gordon Walker, following his tour of the Far East, suggested such an international nuclear force, was he speaking with the knowledge and authority of the Prime Minister? Second, in view of the guarantee to India which we and the United States have virtually given, will the Prime Minister assure the House that the British V Bomber Force in the Indian Ocean and, later, the Polaris submarines will continue to be equipped with nuclear weapons? Finally,—

Hon. Members: Too long.

Mr. Speaker: Order. The invitation to ask a supplementary question is an invitation to ask one question.

The Prime Minister: I agree with the hon. Gentleman's preamble to his questions; I thought that it was very fair. As regards the statement by Mr. Gordon Walker, there was no question of whether he was talking with or without authority. He was merely repeating what I had said to the House in the debate on 16th December and repeated in the same debate on 17th December. He was saying nothing new beyond what I had already said in the House. As regards the Polaris submarines, it was never envisaged by the previous Government or by this Government that the submarine programme then on order was to have any rôle in the Pacific.
As regards the decision on the V Bombers, I have already referred to this: it is our proposal that these should be internationalised. I agree about the urgency of it, but it will take some time to secure the necessary agreement which will be satfactory to all the Powers concerned, both those which have something to contribute and those which need the safeguards.

Oral Answers to Questions — GOVERNMENT EXPENDITURE (ARMS AND SOCIAL SERVICES)

Mr. Frank Allaun: asked the Prime Minister if he will set up an inter-departmental committee of Ministers dealing with the social services on one hand, and defence and foreign affairs, on the other,


to review the balance of Government expenditure between them.

The Prime Minister: This is a matter for the Cabinet.

Mr. Allaun: Will the Cabinet, particularly in the present financial situation, act on the advice of those who want the balance tilted far less heavily in favour of arms expenditure and more towards industry and social needs? Would it not be better if the 62,000 Service men now in Germany were brought back and were working in British factories producing the goods we need?

The Prime Minister: As I have said in more than one debate recently, we have just undertaken—obviously, this requires the full action of the Cabinet—the most searching review of every item of Government expenditure, including defence and all civil expenditure. As regards a final determination on defence, I made clear that this must await the outcome of the defence review, and all questions of commitment, on some of which, of course, we have serious and solemn international obligations, must wait, first, until we have completed that review and, second, until we have had an opportunity of discussing all these matters with our Allies and Commonwealth partners.

Mr. William Yates: Will the Prime Minister agree that, although we are anxious to cut the cost of the defence programmes, cutting the defence programmes must not be at the cost of re-organising and making more efficient our country's business economy?

The Prime Minister: That is absolutely right. I have said throughout that, in reviewing the defence programme, we have to consider what the country can bear economically, and, whatever is attempted in the matter of defence expenditure, our country is not strong unless its economic base is strong. I would point out, however, as we hear the term "arms expenditure" used at lot, that expenditure on arms is considerably less than 50 per cent. of the total defence expenditure and the rest involves Service pay, as right hon. Gentlemen opposite know. The scope for cutting what can properly be regarded as arms or hardware is very much smaller than one

might think looking at a total figure of well over £2,000 million.

Sir E. Boyle: While recognising that decisions on the balance of expenditure must be decisions for the Cabinet, will the Prime Minister take it that a large section of opinion does not understand how a decision to hold back a number of vital technological and technical college projects fits in with either educational and economic priorities or with his own past speeches?

The Prime Minister: This question was discussed in a debate at a rather strange time just over 24 hours ago. I have made plain in two debates why this emergency programme which is required by the exigencies of the economic situation is necessary, but I made equally plain that these cuts, which have been forced upon us by the current balance of payments position, are part of a short-term position very different from the long-term one I was trying to talk about on Monday night.

Oral Answers to Questions — COMMONWEALTH ORGANISATIONS

Mr. Boston: asked the Prime Minister what other proposed new Commonwealth bodies, apart from the Commonwealth Court, have been under discussion between Commonwealth countries; and what further consultations and steps are to take place on these developments.

The Prime Minister: The Commonwealth Secretariat and the Commonwealth Foundation. I would refer the hon. Member to the Agreed Memoranda on these two bodies issued with the Final Communique of the Commonwealth Prime Ministers' Meeting on the 25th June.

Mr. Boston: Does my right hon. Friend agree that, if the Commonwealth is to develop and flourish, it is important to make it far less London-based, and that as new bodies are set up there may be a case for centreing them on other Commonwealth capitals and making particular places the centres for particular things? Can he say whether he is having any discussions about this?

The Prime Minister: Yes, Sir. This was discussed at the conference of Prime Ministers. It was the general wish of


all my colleagues that the Commonwealth Secretariat should be located in London, and that is where it will function. But apart from the organisations and bodies referred to in the Question and the Answer, I am sure that my hon. Friend will have noticed our plans for intensifying Commonwealth consultation, first of all, in economic affairs, including commodity prices and matters of that kind, and, secondly, in relation to bringing the planning departments of various Commonwealth Governments together so that we can all help one another with the development plans which each of us has.

Mr. Tilney: Can the right hon Gentleman say whether any discussions have taken place about the formation of a Commonwealth Police Force on the lines suggested by the Prime Minster of Canada and like-minded nations, so that those Commonwealth countries which are richer than we are can take some of the burden off us?

The Prime Minister: There was no discussion of this proposal. It was not before us this year partly because all my Commonwealth colleagues wanted to emphasise the importance of the United Nations in the matter of peacekeeping. If the hon. Gentleman is referring to the use of a Commonwealth police force to step in and deal with trouble, in so far as it is a question of recruiting in different countries for internal police forces, I think that this is a matter best dealt with bilaterally, for example between the Government of Canada and some of the other countries which might be involved.

Oral Answers to Questions — FINANCIAL AND ECONOMIC AFFAIRS (MINISTERIAL RESPONSIBILITY)

Mr. Kershaw: asked the Prime Minister what arrangements are to be made for Ministers to be available during the Summer Recess to deal with financial and economic matters.

The Prime Minister: The normal arrangements, Sir.

Mr. Kershaw: That reply fills my heart with foreboding. Does the Prime Minister realise that, rightly or wrongly there is an impression that there is a divergence of policy between the Department of

Economic Affairs and the Treasury, one wishing to press the accelerator and the other the brake? As this involves the question of confidence, will the Prime Minister now give the House an assurance that he is at last prepared to face economic realities?

The Prime Minister: With regard to the rumour to which the hon. Gentleman has referred about the views of my two right hon. Friends, I am not aware that this is a feeling outside the jaundiced minds of one or two hon. Members opposite. But, since the hon. Gentleman was kind enough to use the words "rightly or wrongly", I would say that if that view is held, it is held wrongly. So far as economic realities are concerned, I should have thought that the manner in which we have laid before the House successive necessary programmes, including some very unpopular and, for us, unpleasant decisions in the field of cuts in Government expenditure, starting with defence and the more recent ones, would have been proof of our willingness to face realities.

Mr. William Hamilton: Will my right hon. Friend state what steps he and the Government are taking to deal with the treacherous rumours which emanated from the City yesterday? Will he give an assurance that he will conduct an investigation into the source of those rumours?

The Prime Minister: I would not use the word "treacherous" but I think that there were some highly neurotic rumours flying about yesterday about a meeting between the Governor of the Bank of England and myself, which certainly did not take place, and an extraordinary suggestion, amounting almost to a libel or the Governor of the Bank of England, that he was in favour of devaluation, when it is perfectly well known that he is as determined to maintain the value of the £ as anybody.

Oral Answers to Questions — AIRCRAFT INDUSTRY (COMMONWEALTH CONSULTATION)

Mr. Raphael Tuck: asked the Prime Minister whether he will seek to call a Commonwealth Conference of Ministers responsible for the aircraft industry to


co-ordinate and unify plans for the aircraft industry throughout the British Commonwealth.

The Prime Minister: I would refer the hon. Member to the Communiqué issued at the end of the recent meeting of Commonwealth Prime Ministers.

Mr. Tuck: Bearing in mind my right hon. Friend's heartening statement to the House on 29th June, 1965, which appeared in column 309 of the OFFICIAL REPORT, that he envisaged meetings between representatives of Commonwealth countries to deal with questions affecting aviation and aircraft, will he give an assurance that he will at least consider the great advantages to be derived from developing the aircraft industry on a Commonwealth basis, with particular reference to Australia and Canada, and does he not agree that there might be a great saving in cost, in particular with reference to research and development?

The Prime Minister: We ourselves took the initiative in this matter. The reason was that I thought it was highly desirable that there should be Commonwealth consultation because we have found cases in the last year—before last October and since—where we missed out on possible big Commonwealth orders for civil and also military aircraft because we came too late into the field. We thought it essential that when planes are being designed there should be discussions with Commonwealth countries to see what their needs are so that we can take account of those needs and make long-term plans. With regard to an organisation to co-ordinate plans, we discovered that there was the Commonwealth Air Transport Council, which last met in 1956 and has got into a state of desuetude, and so we decided to revive it and make it a reality.

Oral Answers to Questions — VIETNAM

Mr. Newens: asked the Prime Minister if he will make a statement on the latest steps taken by Her Majesty's Government to achieve a peaceful solution to the war in Vietnam.

The Prime Minister: I would refer the hon. Member to my statement in the Foreign Affairs Debate on 19th July.

Mr. Newens: Does my right hon. Friend now recognise that the attempts made by the Government to bring about a peaceful solution in Vietnam have been seriously undermined by the support given by the Government to American policies? Will he at this stage take the opportunity to make it clear that British opposition to the build-up of forces in South Vietnam applies equally to the additional land forces which the United States Government have now decided to send in?

The Prime Minister: No, Sir; I am not going to make anything of the kind clear. I dealt with this matter very, very fully indeed in the recent foreign affairs debate, and it has, I am afraid, become very clear—it has become even more clear as a result of the mission of my hon. Friend the Member for Leek (Mr. Harold Davies) to Hanoi—that there are people in the Far East, in important countries, who hold the key to the situation and who at the moment feel that they are winning and that they may lose more round the conference table than they can win on the battlefield. I am sure they are wrong. As I have said before, I am sure that there will be no military solution, and it will not be long before this realisation spreads. Therefore, it is right that we should continue as we have been going. It should be recalled that the Commonwealth Peace Mission represents Governments of every point of view, some who have supported the United States, some who have taken an unaligned position and some who have been against the United States. I still think that this provides the basis for bringing all concerned round the conference table under the aegis of the Anglo-Russian Co-Chairmen of the 1954 Agreements.

Mr. Blaker: The Prime Minister will recall that he has said that the key to the problem lies in Hanoi. If he is considering how to make contact, if the occasion arises, with the Hanoi authority, would he bear in mind that there are capitals in the world where both Hanoi and we have missions, and would he consider whether it is possible to make contact, if necessary, through those missions?

The Prime Minister: I wonder what the hon. Gentleman thinks we have been doing all these months. We have, of


course, been trying every possible means of contact with Hanoi, and so have the United States in one particular example which I mentioned in our recent debate. But the difficulty has been that Her Majesty's Government—both this Government and the previous Government—do not recognise North Vietnam in a diplomatic sense, and this has been a bar to the kind of contacts that have been referred to. However, I am glad to say that, despite the strong views expressed by one or two right hon. Gentlemen opposite about our taking the wrong lines by these contacts with Hanoi, what we did has now been explicitly and publicly supported by President Johnson, who in particular referred to the very great value and good effects of the visit of my hon. Friend to Hanoi.

Mr. A. Henderson: Can my right hon. Friend give any indication whether the four peace points that have been put forward by Mr. Dong, the Prime Minister of North Vietnam, would be acceptable as a basis of discussion at a reconvened Geneva conference, especially in view of the suggestion that such a course would not be unacceptable to the United States Government?

The Prime Minister: This is, of course, something that we could have discussed if the Commonwealth Mission had gone to Hanoi. But I myself do not feel that the four points provide of themselves a solution to the problem. However, I said in the debate that I believed that a return to the spirit and performance of the 1954 Agreements would provide a basis for a solution. I would also commend—I think that this ought to be pressed more in international activities—the very detailed proposals that were published in what were called "guide lines" to the Commonwealth Conference on this. I believe that the "guide lines" agreed by the Commonwealth would provide the right way to negotiations and peace.

Mr. Woodhouse: Is the Prime Minister aware that it has been suggested that the Foreign Secretary may have made a misstatement of fact when he said a few weeks ago that the Communists in North and South Vietnam had insisted that, before any conference or discussion took place, all United States troops must leave South Vietnam? Will the right hon. Gentleman take this opportunity of denying

that allegation and confirming that what the Foreign Secretary said was incorrect?

The Prime Minister: My right hon. Friend was absolutely correct about this. I wish that he had not been. I wish that the situation were different. But it has been repeatedly said in these countries that there must be total evacuation by America from the area before negotiations can take place. I think, however, that there is some doubt as to how far this is a sticking point. There have been signs of a rather different attitude in at least some pronouncements and messages which have filtered through.
This again is a strong argument for the Commonwealth Peace Mission to take an opportunity to talk in Hanoi. Others have been talking in Hanoi. I do not know how far the phrase mentioned by the hon. Gentleman represents the latest thinking of the Hanoi Government. I hope that it does not.

Mr. Driberg: Has my right hon. Friend had any report yet, formally or informally, from the Ghana High Commissioner in London, since President Nkrumah is one of my right hon. Friend's colleagues on the Commonwealth Peace Mission and the High Commissioner has just returned to London from Hanoi?

The Prime Minister: It was that, amongst other things, that I had in mind when I said that we hope to get further information on the point raised by the hon. Member for Oxford (Mr. Woodhouse). I have not had a report yet, directly or indirectly, from the Ghana High Commissioner and, of course, it would be appropriate, in circumstances which we recognise, that he will wish to report to his own President before we get any official report either from Ghana or from the High Commissioner himself in London.

Mr. Lubbock: Will the Prime Minister try to keep down the length of his replies so that more Questions can be asked? I ask this in the friendliest way.

The Prime Minister: I am not sure whether there was a Question there apart from the first.

Mr. Lubbock: I ask in the friendliest possible way.

The Prime Minister: I take it in the friendliest possible way. I have had a tally taken recently of the number of Questions we have got through. Some of these are very important issues. Sometimes the Question have double and treble barrels and sometimes have a preamble which cannot be ignored.

DEFENCE EXPENDITURE

Mr. Powell: (by Private Notice) asked the Secretary of State for Defence if he will make a statement on his cuts in expenditure on the defences forces?

The Secretary of State for Defence (Mr. Denis Healey): May I congratulate the right hon. Member for Wolverhampton, South-West (Mr. Powell) on his new post and hope that he will hold it longer than his predecessors in the shadow Cabinet? I must say that three shadow Defence Secretaries in a year beats even the record that the party opposite set when in office.
I am grateful for this opportunity to expand on the information given to the House yesterday by my hon. Friend the Under-Secretary of State for Defence for the Royal Air Force in a debate attended by only six hon. Members opposite and no right hon. Gentleman from the Opposition shadow Cabinet.
As the House knows, our object is to reduce defence expenditure in 1969–70 from about £2,400 million at 1964 prices, which would have been the cost of the programme which we inherited from the previous Administration, to £2,000 million at the same price level—that is to say, a reduction of about £400 million in real terms.
At the present stage of the Defence Review we have managed to reduce the forecast figure to about £2,180 million. In other words, we are more than half way to our target. Of this reduction of £220 million, £150 million is derived from decisions which have been announced in this House since the beginning of the year.
One hundred and fifteen million pounds comes from the changes in the R.A.F. aircraft procurement programme which were debated at length in the spring—that is to say, £75 million as a direct result of the substitution of the Phantom, the C130, the F111A, the Kestrel and the Comet for the P1154, the HS681, the TSR2 and the OR357—the previously planned Shackleton replacement—and £40 million, which is probably an underestimate, from the fact that we shall not now have to buy an interim generation of aircraft to fill the gap in our predecessor's slipping programme.
Then there is a £15 million saving in the year in question as a result of cancelling the fifth Polaris submarine and £20 million as a result of the Army Reserve reorganisation which I announced in the House last week. The remaining £70 million—the difference between £220 million and £150 million—is derived entirely from administrative decisions none of which raises a major issue of policy. First, we shall be able to reduce expenditure on the naval Phantom aircraft in 1969–70 by arrangements to include them within the American credit terms. For working purposes we are at present assuming that we shall take up all the American aircraft options and the figure of £2,180 million provides for them. I should point out that we have not, of course, yet taken a decision to take up the option.
Secondly, we have assessed the probable value of the rationalisation and organisation savings to be effected by 1969–70 at £15 million. This is entirely a question of internal management and a large number of comparatively minor savings—for example, the saving on the integration of motor transport, airfield construction and intelligence, all of which I have already announced to the House.
Finally, rephasing and minor changes in the programme between the summer of 1964 and the present day—the sort of thing that happens in any year, except that this time there has been a far greater emphasis on applying realistic judgment to production forecasts—have reduced the figure for 1969–70 by a net £35 million.

Mr. Powell: While thanking the right hon. Gentleman for his partially kindly reference to me, might I ask him two questions? The first is whether there was, therefore, any significant new information in the statement which he made to a Press conference yesterday and, if there was not, whether he would confirm that this was merely a window-dressing operation for the benefit of dissident back-benchers. The second is whether he can say what is the effect upon our total commitments in terms of foreign exchange in the defence field of the decisions he has taken since he assumed office.

Mr. Healey: Let me assure the right hon. Gentleman that my sentiments towards him are totally friendly, but not quite so friendly towards the party to which he belongs, or its record.
Yesterday, I gave the Press hardly any information which was not readily available and which hon. Members opposite would have known if they had done their homework. But I felt it necessary to give a progress report on what has already been happening and to pull together the facts given to the House, in particular, to correct some faults and misleading impressions caused by speculation in the Press and elsewhere about the results of the Defence Review. I did not follow the precedent set by my predecessors in giving the conference off the record and I will place the text in the Library. I only wish that my predecessors had taken the same line on these conferences.
I know that there is a feeling that it would have been better if I had made a statement in the House, but I have made three statements in the last fortnight and I think that I would have been abusing procedure if I had chosen a statement after Question Time to give a progress report. All Ministers in the Government are making a great deal of progress all the time and I do not think that there would be much time for other business if we reported our progress every time occasion arose. I am glad that the right hon. Gentleman, as a Front Bencher, has himself dropped the complaint that had been made in the newspapers that this statement should have been made in Parliament.
None of the cuts that we have made so far in any way reduces our ability to fulfil our international commitments. Indeed, many of the changes, particularly those concerning the Territorial Army and aircraft, increase our ability very substantially.

Mr. Powell: The right hon. Gentleman may have misheard my second question. Perhaps I may put it again. I asked about the effect upon our total commitments in terms of foreign exchange which has come about as a result of the steps which the right hon. Gentleman has taken.

Mr. Healey: I am sorry that I misheard the right hon. Gentleman. There is no effect on our total commitments, in terms


of foreign exchange, from the changes in policy which I have announced so far. I have made it very clear to the House on many occasions in the past, and at the briefing which I gave to the Press yesterday, that reductions in overseas exchange expenditure must depend on withdrawing individuals from service overseas. There is no other way of achieving them, except by reaching agreement with other countries to bear part of the burden of our presence in their territories. As the House knows, my right hon. Friend the Chief Secretary has had outstanding success in increasing the readiness of the West German Government to contribute in this respect in the last few months.

Mr. Frank Allaun: Does what the Secretary of State now say mean that to make more substantial cuts it will be necessary to cut not merely our hardware, but our commitments overseas? Will he press for this among his Cabinet colleagues?

Mr. Healey: It may be possible to make some further substantial savings without affecting our commitments overseas by applying the doctrine of "value for money" more stringently still to the equipment used by our forces, but I readily confess that to bridge the remaining nearly £200 million gap to the target will require redeployment of our forces and a smaller total of manpower in the Services.

Mr. Hugh Fraser: I am sure that the whole House is very grateful for this statement, but I must confess that until I have seen it in detail I can ask just one question. It is not clear what sums within the figures are being made available, if any, for the procurement of a tactical strike reconnaissance aircraft for the Royal Air Force. May I have the right hon. Gentleman's assurance that there is to be no final decision about the Territorial Army until the House has had a chance of debating the quite new principles which come out in the right hon. Gentleman's statement?

Mr. Healey: On those two questions, the costings figures which I have given to the House include provision for the replacement of the TSR2 as a Canberra replacement by the same number of F111As. However, as I have said, we have not yet decided, as a Government, whether we shall replace the Canberra

by the F111A or some other aircraft. We still have another five months before we are required to take up the first small option of F111As.
On the subject of the Territorial Army, as the right hon. Gentleman knows, we plan to publish a White Paper on our proposals for reorganising the Reserve Army, probably in November, and the House will have an opportunity, I imagine, to debate that before the Bill itself is discussed. No final decision can be taken, of course, until the Bill is approved by Parliament.

Mr. Atkinson: Is my right hon. Friend aware that the Government's policy is to increase the gross national product by 25 per cent. before 1970 and that if that policy is achieved the figures for defence which he has announced as representing a cut would still represent 7 per cent. of the gross national product by 1969–70? Is he further aware that it is the opinion of many eminent economists in this country that unless we cut the defence budget to 4½ per cent. of the gross national product, we cannot possibly succeed in carrying out our social programmes?

Mr. Healey: I cannot agree with my hon. Friend on either of those issues. I think that there will be general agreement among able economists who know the facts that to reach the target which we have set ourselves would reduce the percentage of the gross national product spent on defence from 7 per cent. to under 6 per cent. in 1969–70. Many countries manage to support very progressive welfare systems and still spend 6 per cent. of their gross national product on their security.

Sir Richard Glyn: Has the right hon. Gentleman considered the possibility of making savings in foreign exchange by reducing the number of troops overseas? Would he agree that, if troops overseas were brought back, that would mean an enormous increase in expenditure in this country on barracks and married quarters, and that the only way in which a total saving can be made is by dismissing those men and reducing the size of the Forces?

Mr. Healey: Of course, that is true.

Mr. Rowland: As in different alliances in different parts of the world we share certain responsibilities with the United States, has the American Government in


any way been consulted about the defence cuts already proposed or pending?

Mr. Healey: I hope that the Government will be in a position to discuss with allied and all Governments with which we have commitments the broad outline of our thinking some time in the autumn, and of course foremost among the Governments we shall then consult will be the United States, our major ally.

Mr. Lubbock: May I ask the right hon. Gentleman three questions? [HON. MEMBERS: "Oh."] Three short questions. Is there any truth in the accounts of the increasing cost of the Spey engine in the Phantom programme? Secondly, is he giving active consideration to ordering a Spey-engined Mirage IV in place of the F111A, which would result in substantial savings in foreign exchange because of the higher British content? Finally, will he consider immediate cuts in capital expenditure on overseas bases, such as Aden, to help the measures of the Chancellor of the Exchequer?

Mr. Healey: I will do my best to meet the hon. Gentleman's advice to the Prime Minister. The Minister for the R.A.F. gave details of the Spey-Phantom two days ago, as the hon. Gentleman should have known. There has been a disturbing increase in the research, development and production costs of the Spey engine for the Phantom in recent months and we are keeping this problem under very close and continuous review.
On the Mirage IV, we are looking at all possible aircraft as a possible replacement for the Canberra, but I think that the hon. Gentleman will know that the Mirage IV is being designed as a high-level nuclear bomber and what we are looking for as a Canberra replacement is a low-level bomber capable of delivering conventional weapons with great accuracy. A very large increase in development would be required to give the Mirage IV that type of capability.

Mr. Lubbock: That is not my information.

Mr. Healey: I dare say that it is not the hon. Gentleman's information, but mine is a great deal better than his. Let me point out to him that if we buy the F111A, it is quite possible that the Spey may be put into it.

DETECTIVE SERGEANT CHALLENOR

The Secretary of State for the Home Department (Sir Frank Soskice): With your permission, Mr. Speaker, I should like to make a statement about the case of Detective Sergeant Challenor.
As I have already informed the House, I have recently received the Report of Mr. Arthur James on his inquiry into the circumstances in which it was possible for Detective Sergeant Challenor to continue on duty at a time when he appears to have been affected by the onset of mental illness. I am very grateful indeed to Mr. James for the thoroughness with which he has investigated these matters, and I am anxious to publish his Report in full as soon as possible.
I have a statutory power to remit a person in Mr. Challenor's position to prison for trial if I am satisfied that he can properly be tried, and I have been giving anxious consideration, in consultation with my right hon. and learned Friend the Attorney-General, to the question whether I should be justified in exercising this power but on the medical advice we have received I am of opinion that I could not yet properly direct the return of Mr. Challenor to prison from the hospital at which he has been receiving treatment. I am, however, arranging for further medical opinions on this question before coming to a decision.
My right hon. and learned Friend has advised me that as the Report deals in part with matters which might be directly in issue in any proceedings taken against Mr. Challenor the publication of the Report might seriously prejudice his chance of receiving a fair trial. I have, accordingly, after consultation with my right hon. and learned Friend, decided that for the time being I should hold up publication of the Report. It is my intention to publish it in full as soon as I can properly do so.
In the meantime, I have to inform the House that Mr. James finds that Mr. Challenor continued on duty in circumstances which cast no blame whatever on any member of the Metropolitan Police Force or on any of the doctors who examined him.

Mr. Thorneycroft: May I, first, thank the Home Secretary for his courtesy in


making this statement before we rise for the Recess? It is a matter which is of some public concern. May I also say that I think that the whole House will feel gratified that he, who has read the Report, feels able to put in the final paragraph of the statement which he has made?
There are two points which I would like to raise arising out of this statement. One is, will the Home Secretary recognise that, from our point of view, no one wants a Report to be published which will prejudice any man in his trial? What I think most of us feel is that what is really important is not the time of the publication, but the fact that the Report will be published. I would like the Home Secretary to emphasise that it is his firm intention to have the text published.
The second point concerns the proceedings. Are those proceedings those which were instituted, but to which Challenor was unfit to plead, or is it contemplated that some new charges might be made against him? In any event, would it be his view that sometime in the autumn we ought to decide, one way or the other, whether we are to take decisions? We do not want to be perpetually in the dilemma of having proceedings which might be brought, and therefore, with no publication of the Report. Would the Home Secretary feel it possible for a firm decision to be made some time in the autumn?

Sir F. Soskice: I can say that I agree with everything that the hon. Gentleman has just put to me. I accept that it is of the greatest importance that the public should know exactly what is in this Report, and should know it in full, at the earliest possible moment. I have that very much in mind. The right hon. Gentleman accepts, and I feel that the whole House will agree with me that it is essential, if a man is put on trial for a criminal charge, that he must have a fair trial, and that nothing must be done which could possibly prejudice his chance of having such a fair trial. Subject to that requirement being fulfilled, I undertake, and it is my firm intention, to have the full Report published as soon as I possibly can.
On the question about the charges which might be preferred, that is, of course, entirely a matter for my right hon. and learned Friend the Attorney-General. I understand that the charges which he has in mind are those in respect of which Sergeant Challenor has already been put on trial, but to which he was found unfit to plead. It will, naturally, be a matter for my right hon. and learned Friend whether he thinks it appropriate, in all the circumstances, to add any further charges. I cannot say anything further than that.

Mr. Lipton: Does the statement of my right hon. and learned Friend mean that there can be no publication of the Report until the contemplated proceedings against Challenor have been concluded, or a decision has been taken not to proceed any further with a prosecution?

Sir F. Soskice: That must be a matter for my right hon. and learned Friend the Attorney-General to decide. So far as I am concerned, in deciding when I may publish the Report, I must wait until a firm decision has been taken as to whether Sergeant Challenor is to be prosecuted. If he is to be prosecuted then I must wait until the trial has been completed, so that he cannot possibly suffer any prejudice by the publication of the Report.

Mr. Brooke: As it was I who set up this inquiry, the first under the new powers given by the 1964 Act, may I be allowed to associate myself with the Home Secretary's expression of appreciation to Mr. James for his assiduous work? As the Commissioner of Police was criticised, and as I was criticised, as being responsible for the Metropolitan Police, and for having allowed Sergeant Challenor to be on duty in circumstances when it was alleged that it was clear he was not fit for duty, can we understand from the Home Secretary that Mr. James's Report completely disposes of all those charges?

Sir F. Soskice: I have already said so. I am very glad to have been able to give the House the information which I have already given with regard to the opinion expressed by Mr. James, that there was no blame in the fact that Mr. Challenor was allowed to continue on duty.

Mr. Driberg: Quite apart from the question of prejudice, is it not rather


hard on Mr. Challenor himself that there should be this threat of a possible trial hanging over him for some months? Could this not actually impede his complete recovery? Would my right hon. and learned Friend and the learned Attorney-General consider that there must surely be a strong presumption that, if Mr. Challenor was unfit to plead when he was charged, he was also mentally disturbed when he did the admittedly very terrible things that he did do?

Sir F. Soskice: All those are matters which my right hon. and learned Friend, I have no doubt, will take into account. I think that the whole House would wish to join in the expression of sympathy offered by my hon. Friend to anyone who has been ill, and is not yet well, and who finds himself in the position in which Mr. Challenor finds himself, when charges may be preferred against him.

Mr. Lubbock: While thanking the Home Secretary for making his statement, may I ask him why such a long delay has elapsed between the completion of Mr. James's investigations last November and his announcement of the findings today? May I also ask whether he has given consideration to the publication of an interim Report, or even a summary, of Mr. James's investigations, excluding any reference to matters which might affect proceedings which could ultimately be taken against Mr. Challoner?

Sir F. Soskice: Mr. James completed the hearing on 26th November, 1964, and his Report was delivered at the Home Office on 16th July this year. It is a very long and complicated Report and very careful consideration has had to be given to it.
I had certainly taken the second part of the hon. Gentleman's question into account. My desire, and I feel it would be the desire of everyone, is that the full Report should be published. If circumstances so turn out that it either cannot be done for a long time, or if there is any other reason still standing in the way of publication of the full Report, I will certainly think again—and I have already thought—of the possibility of giving such a complete extract from it as would inform the public of the substance of its findings.
I have not done so yet because, as I say, I feel sure that the public would wish to see the full Report, so that no gloss can be put upon it, and everyone can judge for themselves as to its contents.

PORT TRANSPORT INDUSTRY (REPORT)

The Minister of Labour (Mr. R. J. Gunter): With permission Mr. Speaker, I should like to make a statement.
I have received the final Report of the Committee under the chairmanship of Lord Devlin, which has been inquiring into labour problems in the port transport industry.
The Report was published at 12 noon today as a Command Paper.
The Report makes radical and constructive proposals for solving the longstanding labour problems in the industry. The Government attach the highest importance to the Report. The modernisation of labour relations, including a reduction in the number of employers and the efficient organisation of manpower, and the provision of improved working conditions, are all essential for the industry itself and for the development of the export trade on which our economy depends.
The Government, the port employers, the unions and the Dock Labour Board, will need to give urgent consideration to the proposals for action and I shall have discussions with those concerned at a very early date.
The Government are most grateful to Lord Devlin, and the other members of the Committee, for the work and thought that they have given to this difficult and vital problem.

Sir K. Joseph: As it is since only last evening that I entered the Minister's field of work and have had the chance to see this Report, I must apologise for any shortcomings in my comments upon it.
I am a little surprised by the brevity of the Minister's statement. Would not he agree that this is a brilliant analysis which the Committee has presented which gives him a well-argued, systematic and constructive set of proposals? Would not he also agree that the Report spares no one or no body in its criticism while


paying tribute to some notable initiatives and some honourable failures on both sides of the industry?
Would the right hon. Gentleman accept that it seems on a first reading that Lord Devlin and his colleagues have managed to suggest ways by which regular employment, with all that that should mean in mutual obligations and trust between private employers and employees, can be reconciled with the inevitable fluctuations in demand for labour in the docks still to be safeguarded by the Docks Labour Board?
Perhaps the Minister would acknowledge that the Report also gives the country a glimpse of the operations, clearly referred to in paragraphs 21, 62, 109, 113 and 114, of the work of a minority—I stress a "minority"—of wreckers. He will agree that action is urgently needed, and that it is sad to see that in paragraph 286—[HON. MEMBERS: "Too long."] I ask the Minister to agree that it is sad to see from paragraph 286 that
… all the running has been made by the employers on the one side and the dissidents on the other.
The paragraph goes on to say:
At the moment the future depends on the T. and G.
May I put some specific questions to the Minister? [HON. MEMBERS: "No."] This is a very important Report. In seeking to reduce the number of employers, would the Minister assure us that he will safeguard the right of new entrants to the industry? We recognise that the number of employers should be thinned out, but we do not want a monopoly created even of a few firms. Would the right hon. Gentleman further agree—[HON. MEMBERS: "No."] Would he look at paragraph 323—

Mr. John Hynd: On a point of order. As we have not yet had the opportunity of seeing this Report, is much purpose to be served by discussing its details?

Mr. Speaker: I do not think that that raises a point of order, but I should like to take the opportunity of pointing out that all I am allowed to allow on a statement is the asking of a few questions. It is very difficult to fit in many questions by back bench Members if Front Bench

Members ask all the questions. I wish not to reprove, but to invite indulgence.

Sir K. Joseph: I am grateful, Mr. Speaker. I have nearly finished.
Will the Minister please bear in mind that the users who are not referred to in paragraph 323 should share the benefits as well as the employers and the employees? We on this side of the House ask the Minister to accept that we want to do nothing to make his task harder, that we note the high hopes mentioned in paragraph 326, and that we wish him all success. We shall not press him prematurely, but we ask him to recognise that paragraph 326 invites the Government to make a firm statement about their own intent to legislate if it should become necessary. Would the right hon. Gentleman give us the assurance that he will take urgent, prompt, personal action on this vital Report?

Mr. Gunter: I welcome the right hon. Gentleman to this most difficult field. I immediately concur with his reference to the Report being a brilliant analysis and the other points which he made in praise of the Report. When the right hon. Gentleman asks for specific assurances on any part of the Report, he will appreciate that the discussions which must ensue next week, I hope, with the interested parties are bound to be of a very sensitive and delicate character, and that it would be unfortunate if I were to express an opinion on any paragraph in the Report until I had met the interested parties. The points which the right hon. Gentleman has raised are very much in my mind.

Mr. Frank Allaun: In view of the attacks on the dockers which we hear—and Manchester and Salford is the third biggest docks in the country—will my right hon. Friend bear in mind that some dockers have to handle loads of 80 lb. and that this leads to accidents and overstrain? Do not let us pay too much attention to this attack on the "idle dockers", because some of them do far more work in a day than we do in a week.

Mr. Gunter: All that I would say to that is that I do not know that anybody has attacked the dockers.

Mr. Tilney: Does the Minister think that it will be possible to solve the great


difficulties of the two unions on Merseyside and decasualisation generally?

Mr. Gunter: I always live in hope. I do not know whether it gets me very far.

Mr. Maxwell: Could my right hon. Friend say how long, in his opinion, it will take for some aspects of this Report to be implemented so that they make a real difference to exporters either in the speed which it takes to get through the docks or in costs? Secondly, what suggestions has my right hon. Friend to make about the steps which exporters might take to assist him and the industry in implementing this vital Report?

Mr. Gunter: The Report draws attention to the importance of exports, and that is why it is to be welcomed and why there should be a great sense of urgency in solving the problem. I hope that the Report will be implemented as soon as possible. However, the negotiations and discussions are bound to be of a delicate but not, I hope, protracted character. I am open to any suggestions from anywhere.

Mr. David Steel: Will the Minister undertake to make another statement to the House after we return from the Recess, indicating how the discussions are going between the Government, port employers, unions and the Docks Labour Board?

Mr. Gunter: I hope to be in a better position to report on how the discussions are going when we return from the Recess.

Mr. Peter Emery: Nobody wishes to complicate the Minister's task, but would not he say that, in principle, the Government intend to be widely guided by the plan of action outlined at the back of the Report? [HON. MEMBERS: "We do not have the Report."] It is in the Vote Office. Hon. Members could get it half an hour ago. Would not the Minister agree that an indication that the Government intended in principle to carry out much of what is in the Report would greatly assist and speed the negotiations which have to take place?

Mr. Gunter: The Government accept the Report generally as a basis for further action. The precise steps to be

taken will become clear when I have had the discussions to which I have referred. However, I assure the House that we are determined to ensure that this opportunity of bringing about a vital improvement in the docks will not be lost.

Mr. Deedes: On a point of order. While appreciating your own difficulties, Mr. Speaker, and without wishing any discourtesy to the Minister, may I point out that the time is now nearly twenty minutes to one, that we have had three Government statements which have occupied the last 40 minutes and that there is to be a Royal Commission today which will further break into the time of back-bench Members? May I enter a rather strong protest on behalf of backbench Members and all those interested in today's Adjournment debates?

Mr. Speaker: I was about to conclude this matter and to make some observations on those lines myself. Without further comment, I leave the matter to the right hon. Gentleman. Perhaps I might say that I shall have to ask my fellow Members, to whom I have thought fit to allot time for Adjournment debates, to impact their speeches as much as they can so that we do not squeeze out others.

ADJOURNMENT

Motion made, and Question proposed, That this House do now adjourn.—[Mr. Grey.]

TEXTILE INDUSTRY

12.40 p.m.

Mr. Charles Fletcher-Cooke: I am grateful to you, Mr. Speaker, for allowing me the opportunity to raise the subject of textiles, and particularly the cotton textile industry. Last time that you were good enough to award me one of these Adjournment periods, it was about six years ago on the subject of education and the claim of the National Association of Schoolmasters to a seat on the Burnham Committee. The Minister, now Lord Eccles, explained carefully that that was quite impossible, but within six months the Association was there. I am, therefore, hoping that my case today will receive equally rapid translation in action if not in words.
The President of the Board of Trade is negotiating, as he has to do, with


foreign Powers because the agreements under which textiles coming from overseas to this country are limited by quota expire at the end of this year. What we have to consider is how, for the future, these imports should be limited. It is, I think, common ground that the President of the Board of Trade should now negotiate, or attempt to negotiate, a global quota instead of individual quotas with different importing countries, because if he negotiates merely with countries that are at present importers experience has shown that new countries pop up which have no traditional market in this country and rapidly acquire large business at the expense of those which have negotiated previous agreements.
How these negotiations should be carried on and what sort of stand the President of the Board of Trade should take has been set out rather conveniently for us by the right hon. Gentleman's colleague, the First Secretary, in his discussions with the Cotton Board two years ago. On 19th July, 1963, the First Secretary of State and the Joint Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Labour, the hon. Member for Farnworth (Mr. Thornton), met the Cotton Board and reports of their meetings and what they said should be done have emerged.
The best way of dealing with this problem is to urge the Government to adopt the wise words of the First Secretary in the days when he had no cares of office and was free to examine the case dispassionately. The first point made by the right hon. Gentleman—and a very good point it was—was this. He said:
It should be made plain that any chance of renegotiating our imports at 25 per cent."—
that is to say, 25 per cent. absorption of foreign imports into a 100 per cent. market—
while others"—
that is, other industrial countries—
took as little as 2 per cent. could not continue after 1965.
Of course, we take more than 25 per cent. from abroad for the home market, far more than any other Western country takes. Although those countries paid lip service to increasing their proportions after the last G.A.T.T. conference, I do not think that very much has been done and I should like information about the extent to which they have honoured that obligation.
The First Secretary was adamant about that. He said:
In any new agreements there would be no increase over our present levels unless others take much more.
The importance of that is that rumours have leaked out that the President of the Board of Trade in his negotiations is adopting the position that there shall be a built-in increase each year from whatever basis figure he adopts for the global amount which shall be allowed into this country.
This is something against which, I believe, the industry and all members of the Cotton Board are adamant. They say that the figure that the President of the Board of Trade is already adopting, which is probably the 1964 or 1965 figure, is in any event too large and that there should be no question of there being any year-by-year increase in that figure at least until other civilised and Western nations take far more in the way of Asian imports proportionately than they do now and until our figure is down to 25 per cent. That was the First Secretary's advice then and I am sure that it is right.
The second thing that rather worries us is the rumour that in the global negotiations the idea of a ringed fence round the whole business is to be considerably diluted, since the global net is not to include anything but developing countries. This may be inevitable, but if it is I urge the Board of Trade to give us some satisfaction on the leakage that comes through developed countries.
Again, the First Secretary was strong on this point in 1963. It is said that he admitted that there was second-stage competition of Asian goods coming through other developed countries and that this was part of what he decribed as the Asian problem. If the global arrangements are not to cover developed countries, there must be strong provision, first, against substitution—that is, the practice by which certain Western countries buy Asiatic goods and then substitute their own goods for export to the United Kingdom at a figure far less than they would be able to but for that substitution.
The second thing is the problem of added value, which is familiar to the Board of Trade but is slightly complicated. What is feared if the global arrangements are not really global but apply only to


developing countries is that Asian countries with a surplus of cloth can send it at any time for finishing to Western countries; and in this way not only would the quota restrictions be avoided, but there would be a substantial increase in imports from Western countries. Again, those Asian countries can sell at very low prices, as so often happens for currency reasons, to, say, countries like Canada or Eire and this would provide a low enough base on which to mount the 25 per cent. added value. These imports also would enter the United Kingdom duty-free.
To prevent that happening, the United Kingdom should either raise the content criterion from 25 to 50 per cent. for added value or adopt the E.F.T.A. rule that two out of three processes—i.e. spining and weaving or weaving and finishing—should be carried out in the country of last consignment. Otherwise, we visualise another loophole in the system, which we all wish to see made more comprehensive.
Again, at his meeting with the Cotton Board the First Secretary made a strange remark. I do not wish to take this up particularly, but it is rather interesting. He said that our obligations to India and Pakistan were far stronger than our obligations to Hong Kong which did not need help in the same way. It was "pretty affluent already". In my view, there should not be any discrimination. I wonder whether that is still the policy of the Government.
Then the right hon. Gentleman said—and how right he was—that the new agreements, or agreement, must provide for more satisfactory categorisation—again, a very technical matter, and I know that the Minister of State knows all about it. Most of the imports, certainly from Hong Kong, at present provide an efficient system of categorisation. Different sorts of textiles are broken down to over 30 different categories, and the Minister knows the reason for that from the point of view of the home industry.
Now the rumour is that the President of the Board of Trade has adopted the stance for the coming negotiations, not of increasing those categories, as the First Secretary suggested, but of reducing them to only a dozen and for allowing to Asian producers a considerable amount of swing

between those categories. This would be taken very badly, I must tell the Minister of State, by the United Kingdom trade. The right hon. Gentleman also said, did the First Secretary, that the subdivision of quotas should be for short periods, that the periods at present of the quotas were too long; and again, the rumour is that the Board of Trade is hostile to this suggestion, which is a suggestion very much approved by the Cotton Board.
Then the First Secretary said—and this is a very important matter—that the Government—his Government, if they ever got into power—would study the effects of low-cost imports on the prices structure and make suggestions to mitigate their disruptive effects. This is, of course, not just quotas. This is a question of protection, and this was a matter which many spokesmen of the Labour Party, when in Opposition, adopted.
I must mention, in particular, the right hon. Lady the Member for Blackburn (Mrs. Castle), now the Minister of Overseas Development. She, either in the House or outside it, I forget which, put forward a very powerful suggestion when she was in opposition, which was, that to mitigate the disruptive effects of these very low prices a levy should be put upon them but, to satisfy the Asian producers that we were not doing this for selfish reasons, that the results of this levy, a countervailing levy, she described it, should be used for aid to those developing countries in other forms. This would be a means of reducing the disruptive effects of their exports to this country, but, at the same time, they would not as countries suffer, because the countervailing levy would be, as it were, ploughed back to them for general purposes of grants and aid. What has happened to that suggestion? I think it a good one. It seems to have not received now any sort of encouragement from the President of the Board of Trade.
The right hon. Gentleman met the Cotton Board on 27th May this year, when the Board strongly urged him to give further consideration to its proposals for dealing with price disruption. He said that though he could not accept any proposals which involved imposing a duty or levy upon imports from Commonwealth countries he would certainly consider any other measures which would


help to avoid price disruption. Why cannot he not consider it now? Is it in breach of some undertaking?
When the surcharge of 10 per cent. comes off, as, presumably, one day it will, price disruption will cause havoc in the United Kingdom. The position is held at the moment by the surcharge, but the Government are pledged, and rightly pledged, to take it off—in a matter of months, as, I think, was the phrase used last January. What is to happen to price disruption then, if no sort of countervailing duty or levy is to be allowed to be placed on products of the Commonwealth?
Of course, I understand the reasons for this in the past, but when Nigeria, for example, is threatening to adopt a very anti-Commonwealth line in her negotiations for entry into the Common Market so far as the Congo basin treaties are concerned, which we hitherto observed, in so far as anyone can understand them, and if Commonwealth countries are to adopt a line very prejudicial to the former system of trade in the Commonwealth, in the way Nigeria appears to be thinking of doing, then surely our old feelings of obligation in this matter must be looked at again.
If there is to be no duty or levy, at least can we have some assurance generally on new anti-dumping legislation? Of course, everybody knows that the present system of anti-dumping legislation in the Board of Trade really does not work very well. It is too stringent. Can we have a system like the Canadian system, which is very effective for their protection? Although it is not specifically a textile matter, but goes generally throughout imports into this country, it would help the textile industry if we could have more effective antidumping legislation.
I shall truncate my remarks, Mr. Speaker, because, as you said we have to consider other persons wishing to speak, but my general worry is that the President of the Board of Trade is not starting his negotiations from a sufficiently firm stance. He and the Board of Trade have been lamentably weak, in our view, on recent textile matters. I asked a question about Malta, but perhaps the Malaysia problem is even worse. What has happened recently about textile imports from Malaysia?
After protracted negotiations between Her Majesty's Government here and the Government of the Malaysia, agreement was eventually reached on ceiling levels for imports from Malaysia of cotton textiles for retention in the United Kingdom in 1965. The quotas established are 9·8 million sq. yd. for piece goods and 7·6 million sq. yd. for made up goods. This is the most extraordinary thing of all, any outstanding contracts—this is in addition—entered into before 1st May, 1964, and not yet shipped, may be licensed outside the quota. Those outstanding contracts are simply enormous, about 4 million sq. yd. of piece goods and an estimated 23 million sq. yd. of made-up goods.
The Cotton Board was deeply concerned with that, the problem of outstanding contracts, in other negotiations in the past. It has now been conceded to this extent. In the past, only outstanding amounts under contracts covered by irrecoverable letters of credit—which were completely verifiable, and therefore there could be no jiggery-pokery—have been admitted in such cases, and none of the outstanding amounts in the Malaysian case were so covered by irrecoverable letters of credit and no valid reason can be seen why the normal arrangements should not have been gone through and why Malaysia has been given this enormous concession.
This is what worries the people of Lancashire and others engaged in the textile industry, that the Board of Trade is not adopting a firm line from the start. We all know that in multilateral negotiations of this sort one has to give in a little bit along the line so as to get agreement, but if one's initial stance is generally weak, as I think it has been, judging from the hints we have been given on such things as the increase in global quotas built into agreements, or the reduction in the number of categories, an absolute veto against any effective scheme against price disruption, and nothing about substitution or added value, and these sorts of matters, then I am not surprised that the Cotton Board does show some worry in this case.
In the past, the Board was bitterly attacked by a more militant group called the Textile Action Group, which thought that the Board was really—I will not


say the stooge—too closely tied to the Government. In spite of that, it is now really very much worried and vocal on this subject. I think that that goes for all the members of the Cotton Board, including the trade union members.
We face the news today, which is inevitable and may be right, that four more cotton mills have closed as part of a very necessary reorganisation scheme. But all the reorganisation that is going on—and it is a good thing that it is—will come to nought if, when the surcharge is taken off, and when the present agreements run out at the end of this year, there is no firm feeling of confidence in the industry, which can be produced only by strong, global, effective protection against low-priced and often sweated Asiatic imports.
For some years now the cotton industry has faced the fact, and faced it well, that it is not entitled to any protection against what we may call European competition. It knows, and it now realises and faces the fact, that against foreigners, whose standards of living and whose social services and other things are roughly equivalent to ours, it must not expect any protection at all, and in this the industry stands in marked contrast to many other British industries, particularly the motor car industry. The cotton industry and other textile industries have done that. They have reorganised themselves, and they have fined themselves down very effectivedly, thanks to the reorganisation scheme put up by the last Government.
But all this money, and all this effort, will count for nought unless the industry can get what it was assured by the First Secretary two years ago that it would get, namely, a proper global system with some sort of provision against price disruption, some sort of assurance that there will not be the loopholes and the increases in the quotas which have been a feature of the past. I hope that the Minister will be able to make some announcement today, which will go some way to allay the fears of the Cotton Board and others engaged in the industry, that the President of the Board of Trade will be tough with those with whom he is negotiation who take such a derisory percentage of these imports compared with the enormous amount that we still enjoy.

1.3 p.m.

Mr. H. Hynd: Like the hon. and learned Member for Darwen (Mr. Fletcher-Cooke), I represent a cotton textile industry constituency, or rather a constituency that was predominantly cotton textile, but which, unfortunately, is no longer so, and I find myself strangely in agreement with the hon. and learned Gentleman on this occasion.
I would not claim that the cotton textile industry is the most shining example of successful private enterprise, but it must be admitted that it has had very special difficulties. One is that while, as the hon. and learned Gentleman said, it is not afraid of competition, it has been subjected to unfair competition, and that is what it is afraid of. If it is fair competition, the industry is confident that it can be met, but it is this unfair competition which is so worrying, and which has caused so much trouble.
The industry has also been the victim of our very laudable desire to help underdeveloped countries. It is the victim of negotiations with foreign countries. It is tied up with foreign affairs, trade agreements, and all sorts of other things, and so no one can blame the industry altogether for the position in which it now finds itself.
The result has been disastrous to the whole of Lancashire, but the outcome of this disaster is quite surprising. The way in which the reduced industry has readjusted and readapted itself is not quite what we expected, and in this respect we can pay tribute to the co-operation of the textile trade unions. The way in which the textile trade union leaders have persuaded their members to adopt shift-working, to adjust themselves to new methods in the industry, and to adopt a new pay structure is quite creditable, and anyone who knows the difficulties of trade union leaders in persuading their members along such lines must admire the success that they have had.
I wonder whether the employers in the industry have shown similar enterprise, for example, in introducing the latest up-to-date sophisticated machinery. Once or twice I have had the opportunity of visiting textile mills abroad, and I have noticed that their machinery seems to be very much more up to date than what we often see in Lancashire. I know that in parts of Lancashire we have the


latest machinery, but so many of the mills have the old Lancashire looms and the old ways of working, and I wonder why they do not get themselves up to date.
There is a tremendous amount of joint working between the two sides of the cotton industry on the Cotton Board, and I am delighted to learn that the Board is to continue, perhaps with some changes, and that the opportunity will be provided to both sides of the industry to co-operate in that way as well as in others.
As many of us in this House know from painful experience, the textile trade unions have been very active. A number of deputations have come to see us, and we who represent the cotton textile towns have also been very active, as the President of the Board of Trade knows only too well. Some of us saw my right hon. Friend only this week.
What is to be done about this problem? What can the Government do? What should they do? Most of us I suppose, particularly on this side of the House, would say that the ideal is complete free trade, that there should be no restrictions at all on imports or on exports, except, of course, for goods brought in here for finishing. We want as many of them as possible, on condition that they are re-exported. The trouble is that too many of them come here for finishing, and end up here, to the detriment of Lancashire goods.
Whatever views we may have about the theory of free trade, because of the special difficulties facing the cotton textile industry there is justification for special protection of some kind. I agree with the hon. and learned Gentleman's proposal for a global quota, because of the new countries that are now developing cotton industries and sending their exports to this country. Whether they are dumping is a matter for the Board of Trade to decide.
It is all very well to say that we should help developing countries, but cannot we sometimes help them by sending them goods instead of cash? Cannot we send them a lot of Lancashire manufactured textiles instead of sending them cash and credits with which they can buy Japanese textiles? This proposition has been put up more than once in this House, and

I have never heard a real answer to it. We just cannot afford to let the cotton textile industry die, for economic, social and other reasons.
I hope that today the Government will be able to tell us something that will send a message of cheer to Lancashire. If there is any justification for Government help to private industry it is best exemplified by the cotton textile industry, for the reasons that have already been given. I ask the Minister to tell us whether he has any good news to give the House today.

1.10 p.m.

Sir Douglas Glover: I shall obey Mr. Speaker's injunction and shall not detain the House for more than three or four minutes. I congratulate and thank my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Darwen (Mr. Fletcher-Cooke) for raising this very important subject on the Adjournment. I do not know whether it is the case, but I always sense that in its negotiations with the Lancashire textile industry the Board of Trade has a love-hate complex. That may be understandable, because for the last ten or 15 years it has lived in a sort of illicit relationship with the industry, and it may be that this atmosphere has permeated the Department.
The time has now come for us to take a stand. The industry has done more reorganisation and adaptation than any other in the country. It has contracted its production, without too much public display, from 7,000 million yards in 1913 to about 1,000 million today. It now employs only 7½ per cent. or 8 per cent. of Lancashire's working population.
All this has involved an enormous amount of upheaval. The buildings were designed for an industry seven times as large as it is today. That is why many mills do one process only. When they were built the industry was seven times as large as it is today. All these difficulties have now been pretty well sorted out, and owing to the reorganisation that has taken place in the last two or three years we now have a viable industry.
But this industry is entitled to expect fair trading. My hon. and learned Friend referred to the problem of substitution. Canada is one of the worst examples of this. It is true that the


cloth that comes here from Canada is Canadian cloth, but it comes here at a price equivalent to that of Asiatic cloth, and is keeping out Asiatic cloth.
A global quota is necessary, but unless we have proper categorisation such a quota can cover a great deal of sin. If we have no categorisation, or a wrong categorisation, over a period of two years we could have a total offtake of poplin, completely killing the poplin side of the industry, because we were able to import it inside the global quota. Having lost the poplin side of the industry, two years later everybody would say that we did not want poplin on the quota because we did not make it here. If that process continued we should gradually drive the industry into extinction—simply because of wrong categorisation.
In those circumstances, I hope that the Minister of State will make it clear that the Board of Trade will be very tough in its negotiations with overseas countries, so that we can get this categorisation right. It is as important as the global quota.

1.14 p.m.

Mr. Anthony Barber: I, too, will defer to the request of Mr. Speaker to be brief on this occasion, since we are already running late and I do not want to cut out other hon. Members who wish to speak on later Adjournment Motions. There is another reason why I agree. Most of the salient points with which the industry is concerned at present have been raised by my two hon. Friends and the hon. Member for Accrington (Mr. H. Hynd).
I congratulate my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Darwen (Mr. Fletcher-Cooke) for raising this subject, and I also thank Mr. Speaker for having selected it for discussion in the first of this series of Adjournment debates, because it is of particular importance at the present time, for the reason given by my hon. and learned Friend, namely, that many rumours are floating around as to what has been happening in the past few weeks, and some of these rumours are hard and firm.
For example, I was told only yesterday that the President of the Board of Trade has now reached agreement with

the main Commonwealth suppliers on the question of quotas of imports which are to apply from 1st January next year. Actual figures were given to me, but it is not for me to quote them to the House. Nevertheless, before we rise for the Summer Recess I hope that the Minister of State will be able to give us some firm facts and figures as to the intentions of the President of the Board of Trade as a result of these negotiations.
It would be irresponsible of me to seek to minimise the difficulties with which the right hon. Gentleman is faced, but if the information which has been give to me is correct there will be considerable disappointment among all those engaged in the textile industry. It is now generally accepted that the industry has nothing to fear from fair competition with those countries which have what might be called a Western standard of living, but there have been complaints, of the type already referred to by the previous speakers, about the loopholes that exist under which cloth from low-wage sources has entered the United Kingdom from European countries. Asiatic grey cloth has been finished in Europe and then passed off as European cloth. The practice of substitution has already been referred to. In the course of his recent negotiations has the President been able to do anything to stop up these loopholes?
Secondly, I hope that he will say something about the proposal, which has been under discussion for some time, for a returnable levy on cotton textile imports. I can see the difficulties of the proposal, but whatever its merits or demerits it has been put forward seriously. One of my hon. Friends mentioned that it had been put forward by the First Secretary when he considered the matter in the past. I am sure that the industry would welcome the views of the Government on the question.
I also hope that the Minister will be able to give us some assurance about the future of the industry in the United Kingdom. The re-equipment and rationalisation of the industry, which is going on apace, could result in a substantial saving in imports. I need not stress the relevance of this in our present economic situation, but the long-term plans of the industry will be carried out only if there


is confidence in its future. In view of the way in which the negotiations with the overseas suppliers are reputed to have gone in the past few weeks I hope that the Minister will have something to say to show that the Government are confident that there is a place for a thriving United Kingdom textile industry.

1.19 p.m.

The Minister of State, Board of Trade (Mr. George Darling): This rather thin House will agree that the speeches we have listened to from hon. Members on both sides leave us in no doubt about the anxieties which some hon. Members feel at the position of the Lancashire cotton industry. I hope that I can say something to alleviate them. The right hon. Member for Altrincham and Sale (Mr. Barber) said that "information given to him"—the hon. Member for Ormskirk (Sir D. Glover) said that "information given to him"—and the hon. and learned Member for Darwen (Mr. Fletcher-Cooke) said that "rumours he had heard"—led up to certain views. The information given to me about the negotiations which are now in hand lead me to take a less despondent view than has been expressed.
The principal source of concern is that imports from nations whose costs or prices are liable to disrupt our domestic market are still going on. It is the problem of imports from those countries that we are concerned with, and the worries are perfectly understandable. Figures have been given, and we have to face the fact, that over 30 per cent. of our consumption is met by imports from developing nations. The great bulk of these imports come from Commonwealth countries and, therefore, enter free of duty. That presents a formidable and unique problem for the British cotton industry. It is something that does not apply to any other industry in the country.
Over the past decade, imports of cotton textiles from developing countries have grown by about 500 million yards. But these growing imports have not been the only source of difficulty, because over the same period our exports of cotton textiles have fallen by about the same amount. It would be quite wrong to suggest that the industry has lost all these exports through its own failings. The loss of exports owes a good deal to the

closure of many of our traditional markets, especially those in the developing countries. In fact, one is going round in a circle.
Developing nations, with their growing textile industries and balance of payments problems, have wished to buy fewer cotton textiles from us. There are, therefore, widespread import controls against our exports of cotton textiles to them. At the same time, developing nations have wished to sell more and more cotton textiles to us. It is only too easy to underestimate the problems of adjustment which the situation has posed for Lancashire.
The industry has had help from successive Governments. Arrangements were made with India, Pakistan and Hong Kong in the late 1950s, and subsequently with other countries, under which limits were placed on the volume of imports that we would accept. Then there was the Cotton Industry Act, 1959, which provided Government help for scrapping and re-organisation. In all, the Government will have contributed about £25 million for these purposes. But the results of the efforts to restrain imports have not until now been all that the industry hoped for, and something else is needed.
As the hon. and learned Member for Darwen said, as one source of imports was restrained, new ones appeared. The effect has been that, since the first restraint arrangements were negotiated, imports of cotton textiles have continued to grow at a substantial rate. These imports occurred despite the acceptance by all but one of the parties to the G.A.T.T. Long Term Arrangement of a British "no growth" reservation. Hon. Members will probably know what I am talking about, but I have had to learn about it rather painfully over the last few months. Other countries are generally obliged to increase their cotton import quotas by 5 per cent. a year, and the average increase in the case of Britain has been well above that figure.
It is never easy to strike a balance between our obligations to British industry and the people employed in it, on the one hand, and to the developing nations, on the other. We cannot ignore the force of the pleas put to us by those countries to trade with us and to sell the


things which they can make. It is unfortunate that, as in our own case, their first beginnings of industry are often concentrated upon cotton textiles and that the supplies of cotton textiles directed towards the developed markets are potentially enormous. That is why country after country has begun to supply cotton textiles to the British market, and our imports have continued to grow.
I can assure the hon. Members who have spoken in the debate that my right hon. Friend the President of the Board of Trade is taking a firm line and has decided that that continuing substantial increase can no longer be accepted. Britain has done her full share in buying imports of cotton textiles from developing countries. We have decided, therefore, that our objective shall be a total limit on these imports, and to hold the growth of imports to the growth in consumption of cotton textiles as far as that can be foreseen.
The Government have received advice and recommendations from the Cotton Board—we shall also take into account the advice that we have received today—and the President of the Board of Trade has had discussions with the Cotton Board. During the last two months, the Board of Trade has been having informal discussions—and at this stage they are informal—with the three major Commonwealth suppliers in Asia. On the basis of those discussions, we are on the point of putting our proposals into final shape for presentation to the generality of supplying countries.
I need hardly say that the advice from the Cotton Board differs from the views that have been expressed to us by the developing countries. We believe, however, that developing countries will accept that there is equity in our claim to have played our full part in buying their cotton textiles and that some firm limitation on our future commitments is only reasonable. To continue to accept large increases in imports would clearly, in the Government's view, cause disruption of the market and would threaten the existence of the British cotton industry.
That was another point which was expressed in the speeches that we have heard. We think it a reasonable view that those advanced countries where the

proportion of consumption met by imports from developing nations is less than 10 per cent. are in less immediate danger of total disruption of their markets than we are. It is now for other countries to continue to increase the access that they give to those textiles. We shall be advancing that view in the discussions on the Long Term Arrangement which are due to take place in Geneva later this year.
The Lancashire industry is concerned not only about the volume of imports, but also about the price. We have made it clear that we exclude any idea that we should impose a duty or levy on imports from the Commonwealth. However, outside that, we are considering what other measures would help to avoid price disruption. We intend, anyway, to secure a practical degree of categorisation so that risks of disruption of the market for particular products will be lessened. I thoroughly agree with the hon. Member for Ormskirk (Sir D. Glover) that effective categorisation is tremendously important.
The hon. and learned Member for Darwen raised the question of imports from developed countries which will remain free from control. It is possible that attempts will be made to circumvent our controls on imports which could be disruptive by transhipment through uncontrolled sources. We recognise that there are real fears here, and we are urgently studying possible safeguards. The views that have been expressed today will, of course, be taken into account. There may be fears that, by leaving some sources uncontrolled, we shall transfer business away from developing countries who need foreign exchange to the developed countries who do not. It has been urged upon us that we should, therefore, put quotas on cotton textiles from all countries.
There is a great deal of force in that view, but I would say that it would be a major step to reimpose quotas on trade between developed countries and not something that we could lightly enter into as long as the 10 per cent. surcharge is with us. That type of sophisticated competition is very different from the low-priced imports that we have been talking about up to now. There is international recognition that imports which cause disruption can be the subject of regulation.


But the idea that trade between developed nations, where social and economic circumstances are somewhat similar, can cause disruption is one that has some pretty wide implications. We recognise that there could be attempts to evade our controls on disruptive imports by diversion through uncontrolled sources to which hon. Members have referred. We want to look at all possible ways of dealing with this problem, including the views that have been expressed today, and this we are doing.
The hon. and learned Member asked how far other countries were honouring their obligations. The G.A.T.T. Long Term Arrangement generally obliges those countries to increase their quotas by 5 per cent. each year. As he probably knows, the obligation on the E.E.C. countries is 10 per cent., and there seems to be no doubt that they are honouring their obligations in this regard. The details for 1964 are not yet available, but we almost certainly expect that there will have been a substantial increase in E.E.C. imports of cotton goods during that year.
The hon. and learned Gentleman also asked whether we could do something about anti-dumping legislation, and mentioned the Canadian system. I am advised that we cannot adopt the Canadian system, as it is in breach of the G.A.T.T. rules and only continues because it preceded the G.A.T.T., which makes rather a difficult situation for us.
I come back to the Lancashire industry itself—

Mr. Barber: The hon. Gentleman said that informal agreements had been reached with most Commonwealth countries—

Mr. Darling: No.

Mr. Barber: Well, that some agreement had been reached, at any rate, with Commonwealth suppliers, as I understood him to say—and that, in due course, an announcement would be made. I put it to the hon. Gentleman that specific figures are being bandied about and are becoming widely known. I did not quote them here because I felt that to do so would be irresponsible, but I thought that the Minister might give them to the House. If he cannot do so, I quite understand, but I hope that he will say how soon we can expect an announcement because, as I say, these figures

are becoming more and more widely known every day.

Mr. Darling: These figures are being bandied about in the informal discussions. Finalisation will have to come about by the end of the year, and we will try to give that information as soon as possible.
Reference has been made to the reorganisation that is going on in the Lancashire cotton industry. The 1959 Act has led to the scrapping of a great deal of plant and the installation of new machinery. Generalisations are always difficult and there is always a risk of being unfair, but I think that it is reasonable to assert that the re-equipment in the early stages was not matched by a parallel reshaping of organisation and structure in the industry.
Over the last two years, however, an active and more widespread reorganisation has got going, assisted by the interests of the big man-made fibre producers who have acquired in the industry some of the plant and machinery, and so on. They themselves are putting resources into it. The new machines are being effectively organised, particularly, I am informed, in the carding and spinning sections, but we are still relying far too much on imported machinery, especially in the weaving and warp knitting sections.
Nevertheless, production and distribution are being increasingly better planned, and there is now also a much greater emphasis on proper selling of the products. The Government believe that the impetus behind this reorganisation justifies the measure of greater certainty on imports which we intend to provide—the two must go together.
We must, however, be clear about the implications of all this. Productivity and shift working in the cotton industry has been increasing, as my hon. Friend the Member for Accrington (Mr. H. Hynd) has said, but the levels remain below those in some other countries with whom we have to compete. If the benefits of the new machinery are to be realised in terms of productivity and cost, it must be worked as long as possible and without over-manning. It is the machines that must do the work, because this is what productivity means.
It is true that the relations between employers and employed in the Lancashire industry are very good. In fact,


there is an example here for many other industries. But we have to face the fact that the labour force contains a large proportion of older workers, and with the passage of time—and in some areas of Lancashire it will not be so long—there must be many retirements. There is a need, therefore, for managements and workers to continue to work together—as, indeed, they are now doing most effectively—to reduce manning and increase shift working.
I want to join with my hon. Friend the Member for Accrington in his tribute to the unions in this industry. We hear a lot in this House and in the Press generally about restrictive practices in the trade unions, and about how they do not co-operate in the introduction of new machinery, new methods, and so on. I am sure that the examples we bandy about represent a minority of the trade unions and a minority of British industry. Here, we have an industry to which none of this criticism applies, and in which the unions have co-operated fully in introducing four shifts, new machines and new methods. This should rightly bring higher wages to the workers, and enable them to get the fair deal they should have in return for the help they are giving in this reorganisation. Higher wages must be paid if the industry is to gain its share of new workers in competition with newer and other industries growing up in the North-West.
The Lancashire cotton industry is sometimes thought of as being old and clapped out, but if this impression is too widespread it is partly the industry's own fault. It has, perhaps, in the past been too keen to parade its own difficulties. It is now becoming a highly capitalised industry, in common with other textile industries, where the most advanced technologies can play their part. I am sure that we are right to give the industry this chance to shape itself for the present and for the future.

Mr. Deputy-Speaker (Dr. Horace King): I am grateful to right hon. and hon. Members for the way in which they have so far co-operated in response to Mr. Speaker's appeal. We began the Adjournment debates 40 minutes late; we are now only 20 minutes late.

REGIONAL DEVELOPMENT, WEST COUNTRY

1.36 p.m.

Mr. Peter Bessell: I am very grateful to have this opportunity of raising the problems of the West Country before the House adjourns for the Summer Recess. I recognise that as we are running late it will be necessary for me to abbreviate my remarks somewhat. I know that one or two hon. Members from constituencies in the South-West are anxious to speak before the Minister winds up the debate, and I shall do my utmost to give them the opportunity to do so.
I do not speak just as a Member of Parliament representing a West Country constituency. I claim to speak as someone who has a fairly wide knowledge of the whole area. I was born at Bath, and for the first 25 years of my life my home was in Somerset. For the next eight years my home was in Devon, and for the last 10 years it has been in Cornwall. To save the arithmetic, or a visit to the Library to look at The Times House of Commons reference book, the answer is 44.
I have also had some experience of business and commerce at various levels, retail and wholesale, and have travelled considerably in attempts to bring light industry and other enterprises to the West Country. My hon. Friend the Member for Devon, North (Mr. Thorpe) and myself have, I am glad to say, had some limited success in that direction. I therefore hope that it may be felt that I speak with some knowledge of West Country problems, and I hope to be able to present them to the House in a way that can be clearly understood.
It has long been my belief that it is necessary to divide the West Country into two distinct sections. One area forms a natural region—the Severn basin, which comprises South Gloucestershire, Somerset, Wiltshire and a large part of Dorset. I do not think that in that section we can include West Somerset, Devon or Cornwall, and that is why I have always believed that this should be a completely separate region. I may say that that view is shared by most people in the extreme South-West. It is, therefore, not unnatural that I shall


confine most of my remarks to the problems of the South-West in relation to the West Country as a whole.
The problems of the South-West are well known. The first is that of depopulation. Between 1951 and 1961, the date when the last census was taken, the population declined in no less than 15 local authority areas in Cornwall, 20 in Devon and four in the area which I call West Somerset, that is, taking a line roughly west of Taunton. At the same time, in England and Wales generally the population increased by 5·5 per cent. That is an indication of the magnitude of the problem of depopulation in the West Country, where there is an ageing population.
In Cornwall, for example, those over 65 account for 15·6 per cent. of the population, in Devon 17 per cent., if we exclude Plymouth and Exeter. In the United Kingdom as a whole the over65s amount to only 11·9 per cent. We have to plan in the West Country to stop the outflow of youth and to bring more people into the area. It is not enough to retain our school leavers; it is important also to correct the imbalance of the population to bring other people into the area to make it a viable economic unit.
Can this be done? I am sure that it can. There are certain priorities. The first must come under the heading of incomes. It is noteable that in Cornwall, in 1959, the average income was £10 5s. a week; in Devon approximately £10 7s.; while in the United Kingdom generally it was £13 5s. in 1964, there was some improvement although in percentages the improvement was not remarkable. In Cornwall, then the average income was just over £11 a week; in Devon just over £11 15s.; while in the United Kingdom as a whole it was in the region of £17 5s.
We have to look at the problems of unemployment. In the off-season unemployment is very high. During the past winter in Cornwall the average unemployment figure was 4·2 per cent. and in Devon it was 3·5 per cent. while in the United Kingdom as a whole it was only approximately 1·4 per cent.
The basic problems as I see them are, an ageing population, depopulation, low incomes and relatively high unemployment.

The difficulty of correcting the population imbalance is accentuated by virtue of the problems of low income and high unemployment. Before discussing corrective measures, we must consider the effect of the situation on the national economy as a whole. The problems of the West Country represent a burden to taxpayers throughout the nation because there is the necessity of providing unemployment Day and a very high measure of National Assistance.
There is also a waste of manpower and of land and natural resources which should be used for the benefit of the whole nation and not merely for the benefit of the West Country. We must consider the overcrowding, labour shortages and congestion of traffic problems which have been created in the South-East, the Midlands and the North as a result of migration of population from areas such as the South-West which are suffering from under-population and providing real problems for the overdeveloped areas.
I have deliberately spent a few minutes in analysing the basic problems so that the House should understand properly the magnitude of the difficulties we are confronting. I want to make quite clear that none of us in the West Country seeks charity. The assistance we demand is, first, to raise the standard of living of the people of the West Country to that enjoyed by the more fortunate people in other parts of the country. Secondly, and much more important, we are making our demand in order to relieve taxpayers throughout the rest of the country of the burden of supporting an area which should be contributing to the full to the national economy. Finally, it is our objective that good sound development in the West Country should enable the people there to play a full part in the restoration of national economic stability.
What has been achieved by way of new forms of employment in recent years? The only example I touch on is that in Cornwall where new factories have provided employment for at least 3,000 people. The county council and others responsible deserve congratulation on their work in this respect. At the same time, changes in agricultural methods, decline of the fishing industry, the closure of other industries, and similar factors


have resulted in a loss of work at least equivalent to the number of people who have been given employment in those factories. Therefore, there has been no improvement. At best, this has been a holding operation. We might say, like the Red Queen in "Through the Looking Glass", that it is taking all the running we can do to stay in the same place rather than to move forward.
The solution is not easy. We have to look at the basic forms of employment which might be attracted to the area. They are agriculture, horticulture, fishing and forestry. Our second basic industry is tourism. We have a certain amount of light industry and one or two important bigger industries such as that of china clay. To these can be added new sources of employment. We need additional light industries sited in locations which will not harm the natural scenic beauty of the area. These areas are easily available and accessible. Next, we should develop some of the indigenous resources of the West Country. Under this heading I particularly emphasise the need to develop the mining resources of the West. Many of the Government Departments which today are housed in the overcrowded, over-congested areas of London, could profitably be resited in the West. Finally, there is the question of the siting of educational training centres.
Because of the time factor I shall not dwell on the problems of agriculture. A White Paper was presented to the House yesterday and we are studying it with great interest. I hope that efforts to encourage co-operative farming may be of assistance to small farmers, but I am certain that the small farmer basically does not want to be retired. He does not want to be put out of business. He wants the kind of assistance which would enable him to stand independently on his own feet and to contribute to the economy of the country by ensuring that he has a fair return for his capital and a fair wage for the work he does. I have a suspicion that the hon. Member for Cornwall, North (Mr. Scott-Hopkins) will refer to this, so I leave the subject to him.
In tourism there is a demand for better communications. We cannot hope to attract tourists to the West Country unless we have the roads, airports and rail

services essential to bring people there and to convey them back to their homes expeditiously when their holidays are over. There is a need for off-season entertainment facilities which do not generally exist. I hope that the Government will consider a system of grants to local authorities, hotels and private developers to help them to modernise standards of accommodation and recreation.
A proper amount of funds must be allocated for adequate publicity. It is tragic that so little publicity is given to the attractions of the West Country. Anyone who has called at offices of the British Travel and Holidays Association abroad will find that there is a very sad lack of adequate publicity to attract overseas tourists to the West Country. Men and women who could spend valuable dollars in overseas currency would be of help to the whole country as well as to that area.
In industrial development there is the problem of roads and the absence of good communications. There is also a need for additional incentives. It may be that larger building grants are required with fewer strings attached to them so that industrialists would be encouraged to build factories in the West. We should also provide tax holidays which in the long term would be of great benefit to the Exchequer and would be a sound investment. We need better housing for the technical staffs which must be brought to the West if the kind of industry which will flourish there is to be attracted to Cornwall, Devon and West Somerset. Further there should be even better training facilities to ensure that the right type of labour is available to anyone who proposes to bring his industrial concern to the West.
There is a demand for an immediate allocation of funds for a full-scale mining survey in Cornwall and Devon. I am disturbed at the amount of private money which is being spent on certain surveys. I am not happy that it is the overseas investor who is for the moment, for the main part at any rate, looking into the mining potentials of the West. The millions of pounds of valuable minerals which lie under the soil of Cornwall should be used for the benefit of the country. It is the business of the


Government to encourage British investors. It is the business of the Government to carry out the necessary surveys to assist them before they make their investment.
I believe, too, that we must have a 10-year tax-free holiday for bona fide companies prepared to invest the necessary capital to open new mines or reopen old mines, with all the risks which that involves. This has been done in Canada and other countries. It is absurd that this country should be so far behind the times. There is a world tin shortage. The price of tin remains very high, and it will remain so for a very long time to come, possibly as far as we are able to see ahead. The benefit to the balance of payments position of producing the tin which lies under the soil of Cornwall for British industry would be enormous. Moreover, it is a potential source of exports which has not yet been considered seriously by any Government Department.
On the subject of the removal of Government Departments to the West Country, the Ministry of Pensions and National Insurance functions most efficiently at Newcastle and Blackpool. The Department of Naval Defence, the former Admiralty Headquarters, has operated from Bath since 1939. I remember in the opening days of the war when this headquarters was first removed from Whitehall to my native city. Why not continue to relieve the congestion in London? The Ministry of Health, the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food and the Ministry of Housing and Local Government could well be sited in the West Country, to the enormous benefit not only of the West, but of London itself, where there is a tremendous problem of congestion, traffic and communications, with people travelling to and from their places of work.
Only a few weeks ago the Secretary of State for Education and Science assured me by letter that he would give favourable consideration to siting at least one new teacher-training college in Cornwall. I ask him to go much further than this. I hope that he will site a number of them not only in Cornwall, but in Devon and in West Somerset, where they could be sited, not only to the benefit of the West, but to the benefit of the teachers

themselves, who would find that this is a healthy and happy area of the country in which to train.
I should like to say a lot on the subject of communications, but I spoke on this matter the other night. Therefore, I shall be brief now. The road conditions connecting the West Country to the main centres of population are intolerable. The improvements on the A38, the A30 and the A303 must not be held up because of the Government's credit squeeze. I believe that the Government must look at this seriously and realise that, if there is to be any sense in their regional development plans, road development in the West and to the West cannot be stopped even for six months because of the country's present financial condition. It was notable that the previous Administration—I pay tribute to them for this—even at the height of the various economic crises with which they were confronted at no time put a stop on road development or road expansion.
I recognise that all that I am asking for would cost not millions but tens of millions of pounds. It could not be achieved quickly in the present state of the economy, but in the long term it would help to stabilise the national economy by spreading the load throughout the economy and enabling each part of the country to contribute equally to the health of the nation's finances. Therefore, I suggest to the Minister that there should be a phased plan over the next 10 years and I believe that he should give us specific undertakings now as to the Government's intentions.
On the subject of agriculture, the first urgent requirement is a new form of credit to enable farmers to deal with the problems confronting them today as a result of the credit squeeze. It is not only the capital account that is their problem. They have the difficulty, too, of meeting current expenses. I do not believe that the Government have appreciated fully the magnitude of this problem.
As I have said, I should like to hear that the Government have plans to make special grants to increase tourist facilities in the West. I have made certain proposals on the subject of industry, but there are many other proposals which should be carefully considered.
We must have the money for a mining survey and we must have a tax-free holiday. I am not suggesting that the resiting of Government Departments should be carried out now. I am suggesting that as it becomes necessary to find new accommodation for various Ministries the West Country should have priority when they are relocated.
On the subject of teacher-training, I rely on the Joint Under-Secretary of State for Economic Affairs, to make urgent representations to his right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Education and Science, as I hope that he will make equally strong representations to him to reconsider the incredible suggestion that the Camborne School of Mines should be moved from the only existing mining area to Plymouth, where, to the best of my knowledge, very little tin is extracted from the centre of the city.
On the question of communications, I hope that a directive will be given to the Regional Economic Planning Council that there must be no further rail passenger closures until the funds have been provided for an adequate alternative road to cover the area concerned. I know for a fact that in one part of Cornwall at the moment—this is not my constituency—there is very grave anxiety regarding future industrial development because of a quite incredible suggestion that one branch line connecting to Bodmin should be closed. I share the concern which has been expressed already by the Member for the constituency concerned.
I want to say a final word on the question of the Regional Economic Planning Council. I have deliberately left this matter to the end because I have certain important questions to put to the Government. The First Secretary of State and Secretary of State for Economic Affairs made a statement to the House on 10th December. I must say that I am very sorry that the right hon. Gentleman is not now present in person to reply to this debate. This is the first occasion on which development in the West Country and regional plans for the West Country have been discussed in this Parliament. For that reason, I think that the First Secretary should have made it a matter of priority to be here to answer us.
The First Secretary said this:
The economic planning councils will be concerned with broad strategy on regional development and the best use of the regions' resources. Their principal function will be to assist in the formulation of regional plans and to advise on their implementation. They will have no executive powers."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 10th December, 1964; Vol. 703, c. 1829.]
If they have no executive powers, what is the function of the Council? The function of the Council is to advise the regional board on all measures affecting the future of the West Country. It is well known that the Liberal Party favours regional government. I hope that it is equally well known that we favour it only if it is a democratically elected body.
If the Regional Council is to be effective, if it is to function at all, it must be the organisation upon which every Government Department and every Minister of State relies for guidance. If this is the case, it is vital that its deliberations are held in public and that the Council itself is chosen by a democratic means of selection, even if its members are not actually responsible to the electorate. This is no reflection upon the members of the present Council.
Are the members of the Regional Council chosen by the people whose future depends upon their decisions and recommendations? They are not. They are selected by the Minister, on the advice of his officials and other advice which he may obtain. What that advice is is clouded in mystery. Are the meetings of the Regional Council held in public? They are not. They are all held in camera.
Are the Press admitted? No, they are rigidly excluded, but they are briefed afterwards. Is the agenda published? Far from it. It is not even available to the clerks of the county councils who might well wish to put certain matters before the Regional Council. Are the minutes published? On the contrary, they are treated like secret diplomatic files. The Press, the public, the officials of local government and even Members of Parliament are prohibited from any knowledge of what takes place at meetings of the Council where the recommendations upon which the Government and the Ministries will depend are deliberated and decided. What possible sense is there in all this? If the functions


of the Council are to be credible, they must also be the subject of discussion by people in all walks of life in a democratic society. This strikes at the very roots of our democratic system and democratic government at every level.
In a recent letter, for example, the Minister of Transport assured me that he would be guided by the recommendations of the Regional Council in respect of a branch railway closure in my constituency. We know that the road programme and industrial siting and development are affected by these recommendations and thus the whole future of the West. I do not believe that the First Secretary realises the resentment and even bitterness which he has created and I beg him to look at this matter again. I ask him to undertake to issue a directive that all meeting shall be public, that the Press shall be admitted, and that minutes and agenda shall be published. I say to the right hon. Gentleman that if he trusts the people they will co-operate. If he disregards them and ignores them and denies them their democratic rights anything which he hopes to achieve through the Regional Council will be imperilled.
As reported in column 1496 of HANSARD, the Minister said on 3rd June that if it is the wish of the South-West that there should be a sub-regional headquarters in Plymouth he would give this favourable consideration. The right hon. Gentleman has my unqualified assurance that this is the wish of the people of the South-West and I hope that this pledge will be implemented.
To most people, the West Country means Devonshire cream and thatched cottages, Cornish pasties and piskies, legends of King Arthur, Glastonbury, Tintagel and Dozmary Pool, quaint place names, forgotten saints, picturesque fishing villages, moorland beauty and blue seas. To those who live there it is all these things, but it is also an area of high unemployment, of an ageing and declining population where opportunities for youth and enterprise are rare.
The people of the West are a proud and independent people. We demand that this country of Arthurian legend, from whence set forth on Britain's errands men like Frobisher, Hawkins, Drake and

others, not least the Pilgrim Fathers, shall be given the opportunity to prosper, to live again so that they may give again as they have given to this nation throughout their long, proud and honourable history.

2.3 p.m.

Mr. Evelyn King: I am sure that all West Country men will be grateful to the hon. Member for Bodmin (Mr. Bessell) not only for raising this subject but for the eloquence and, indeed, towards the end of his speech almost the poetry with which he spoke about it. I have seldom enjoyed a speech more. I shall intervene briefly and I know that I shall make myself popular with the Chair and with most hon. Members if I do not attempt to interleave my observations with statistics and figures, many of which have been provided already and which it would take overmuch time for me to reinforce.
Anyone who is acquainted with the social history of our times is bound to be sympathetic with the development areas. It was the state of those areas which first brought me into politics, but in so far as resources are poured into those areas we must also be aware that we are penalising, if not punishing, the areas into which the resources are not poured. Unemployment is, of course, a factor, but unemployment is not the only social ill in this country. I have no doubt that in the Ministry offices there is a map showing areas of heavy unemployment throughout Britain, but I should like to think that there is also, or that there will be shortly, a map showing the areas of low-wage economy, because that factor is equally important.
The hon. Member for Bodmin mentioned the point and I repeat it. The average wage paid to my constituents in Dorset is between £2 and £3 a week less than the average elsewhere in Great Britain. This means that here is an area of hardship. It will be pointed out no doubt that the unemployment rate in my constituency is probably less than 1 per cent., but that is not the only factor of hardship and I beg the Ministry to consider also where the areas of low wages exist in this country.
Dorset has been desperate for many years for light, clean industry and small factories. I see no sign of their coming. We are conscious of our aesthetic heritage


and we do not seek to be an area of heavy industry, but we seek to have light, clean industry in small packages. Heaven knows that for many years it has been difficult enough, but up to the time of the General Election it was possible to erect and use without consent an industrial factory up to 5,000 sq. ft. in area. The present Government, for reasons which I fail to understand, are now making it necessary to obtain an industrial development certificate even for the smallest factory. As a result, they are not making the position better. They have made it worse. Although I have sympathy with the unemployment areas I do not see how that measure will assist in providing employment in other parts of the country.
I speak briefly of the roads, because the hon. Member for Bodmin dealt with them thoroughly, but if one travels, as I do habitually, from London to Weymouth through Poole and Bournemouth, particularly at the weekends, it is not unusual to have a 45-minute wait. [HON. MEMBERS: "More."] I cheerfully accept that. More. The roads situation in Dorset is chronic. A sum of £14 million has been spent on the roads in Lancashire alone. I cannot see why we in the West Country should not have a fair share of the expenditure on roads. This expenditure affects not only the tourist industry, but also the question of attracting light industry into the area, because industry will follow communications. We cannot leave the area wholly dependent on tourism. I feel that the Ministry looks at the unemployment rate and thinks that because it is between 1 per cent. and 2 per cent. all is well but, as I have said, unemployment is not the only factor.
There is also under-employment. The conditions for the young in my constituency are such that in August and September they work extremely long hours at a time when the population in Weymouth goes up from 40,000 to over 100,000 in a month. Many of these young people may start work at eight o'clock in the morning and continue until 11 p.m. Come November, and if they are not unemployed they are under-employed, not only in terms of hours of work, but in the sense that there is no opportunity for the development of their inherited skills. They must either leave the area or throughout their lives their abilities and any technical skills which they might

have acquired will be unused. Because the young are so treated, because wage rates are low and industry is rare, it follows that the rates are high. This, in turn, brings about another hardship. But fares are high and so are electricity charges. My present correspondence about the bus fares is voluminous.
This adversely affects what is, perhaps, the major class of constituent in my area, the old and the retired. The correspondence I have been having on the subject of public service pensioners, on which I must not dwell, is enormous. These people have been hit twice. They are resentful and have reason so to be. First, the Government's pledge in respect of public service pensions has been dishonoured, and, on top of that, their other pledge about the lowering of rates has not been honoured. In fact, the rate burden has risen. In addition, bus fares, electricity and every element in the cost of living is going up. These people have been treated harshly, and the state of affairs which hits them is, in turn, linked with the lack of industrial development in the area.
Since they came in, the Government have appointed about 100 Ministers, There are moments when I feel like suggesting that there should be a Minister for Dorset. Perhaps that is flying rather high, but, I suggest—this is the case in Canada and many parts of Europe—that there ought to be a Minister for Rural Development. Hon. Members opposite—I speak in the plural, but I see not one present except the Minister on the Front Bench—almost inevitably represent industrial areas. This is in the nature of things and I do not complain, but their interest is confined to the industrial areas. On the agenda for the Labour Party conference, for instance, one scarcely sees a resolution dealing with rural problems.
More than half the population lives not in London, Bradford, Leeds, Manchester and the other large cities and towns, whose problems are deep in the minds of hon. Members opposite, but in the countryside or in towns with less than 50,000 population. These are the people who are not getting the square deal that they ought to have, and it is on their behalf that, in this very brief speech, I make this plea.

2.11 p.m.

Mr. Geoffrey Wilson: I am glad that the hon. Member for Bodmin (Mr. Bessell) has raised this subject, and that he mentioned tourism, although I was rather surprised that he did not say very much about it. My usual complaint about speakers who refer to development in the South-West is that they talk too much about tourism and not enough about the substantial opportunities which there are in the South-West, particularly in Cornwall, in agriculture, horticulture and other industry.
It is not generally appreciated by the public at large what a very large factor our economy the tourist trade is becoming. The British Travel Association recently stated that in 1964 there were 2,400,000 overseas visitors to this country and that they spent here £218 million, in addition to £118 million in fares to British carriers, making a total of about £330 million in our earnings of overseas currency.
The Association adds that it is expected that this year there will be 2,700,000 overseas visitors spending in this country about £360 million, and I understand from what they have said previously that about one-fifth of that total will relate to the South-West. These are large figures. Tourism is the fourth largest British export, it is the largest single dollar earner, and it has risen three times as fast in the last ten years as the total of physical assets.
Cornwall does not get as many overseas visitors as Britanny. I can never understand why. Cornwall has everything that Britanny has—inland moorland, picturesque coastline, surf bathing, and even oysters. I remember saying to a Cornishman once that the only advantage which Britanny had over Cornwall was that in Britanny the women wore funny hats on Sunday, but he replied, "Ours do, too". That is as may be, but I am certain that there are further opportunities for the development of tourism in the South-West, and they could be seized without any destruction of local amenity The hon. Member for Bodmin mentioned advertising, and I agree that more could be done in that direction.
The chief difficulty for tourism, is transport, as it is for the other potentials in the South-West—china clay, machinery manufacture, ship repairs, non-ferrous

metal mining, agriculture, horticulture and the rest. All these depend on improved transport by road, rail and air. I shall say no more about the road programme, which has been debated recently in the House, except to observe that I hope that the deferment of starting dates of new construction will not put a setback on all the developments which are due in our area.
Now, a word about the railways. Fairly substantial improvements have been made in the services to the South-West, but I understand that the line west of Plymouth is regarded by British Railways, though they have every intention of keeping it going, as one which does not justify a large expenditure of capital for improvements, the reason being that it does not carry sufficient traffic. But, of course, if all the domestic coal trade, at present carried into Cornwall very largely by sea, and the china clay, a substantial part of which is carried by road, travelled by railway, then, unquestionably, the line beyond Plymouth would justify considerable capital expenditure for improvement. Great improvements could be made with comparatively limited capital because that line was built on the cheap, its layout includes a large number of unnecessary curves which could quite easily be straightened out, and substantial improvements could be made in some of the bridges and viaducts.
Given better communications, the prosperity of Cornwall could be greatly increased without spoiling its superb scenery. It is quite possible to do this, as anyone can see in Switzerland. The Swiss have developed their tourist trade to a large extent and they have substantial industry in various parts of their country without any spoiling of the scenery. The same could be done in the South-West, and I hope that the Government will do everything possible to encourage it because it would add greatly to the prosperity of the South-West and particularly of Cornwall.

2.16 p.m.

Mr. Jeremy Thorpe: I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Bodmin (Mr. Bessell) on the extremely cogently and concisely argued speech, with, if I may say so, a most moving conclusion. Perhaps this was hardly unexpected as my hon. Friend


comes from a county which recently returned two Cornish nationalists at local government elections. Celtic imagery from my hon. Friend was, in the circumstances, hardly unexpected.
As my hon. Friend rightly said, the public view of the West Country is that it is a picturesque place for holidays, but, of course, it is in the winter months that we see the unemployment rising again, we see depopulation going on apace, in effect, the exporting of unemployment, and we see low wages. On 25th June, I asked the Minister of Labour what was the difference between the average weekly wage in the United Kingdom and in the South-West. The reply was that the average weekly earnings of manual workers in manufacturing and other industries in the South-West was £16 19s. 8d., compared with £18 2s. 2d. for the United Kingdom as a whole. Thus, there is a difference of £1 2s. 6d. in the average wage in the South-West region, but, as the hon. Member for Dorset, South (Mr. Evelyn King) pointed out—this is the great criticism of the present form of regional planning—that takes into account average wages in Bristol, which has totally different problems. I agree with the hon. Member for Dorset, South that the average wage in our area—this is certainly true in North Devon—is something like £2 or £2 5s. a week lower than the national average.
This is the great danger of talking about the South-West as a region if that region includes the Severn Basin, which has totally different problems and is a totally different part of the United Kingdom. I have poined out to the First Secretary that it is far easier for us in the northern parts of Devon to get to London than to Bristol, which is to be our regional capital.
Certain things have happened in the South-West in recent years which, I think, hold out some hope. We have had the survey of the South-West which has been completed with Board of Trade assistance. We have the plans for regional development, about which I shall say a word in a moment. Yesterday, we had from the Minister of Agriculture the announcement of the rural development boards, on which we hope that some progress will be made. Nevertheless, I endorse what the hon. Member for Dorset,

South said about a Ministry concerned with the rural areas. In Canada there is such a Minister for Rural Development, and what he has been able to do for the rural areas of Canada we might well follow in Britain.
We have already had an announcement by the President of the Board of Trade that certain advanced factories will be built. This holds out some hope. A South West Exporters' Association has been formed and is trying to co-ordinate the efforts of exporters in the South-West. If I may be so immodest as to cite my personal experience, I am at the moment carrying out a survey with a view to leasing an aircraft and operatting an airline for the West Country as a whole.
There are things which have to be tackled. First of all, there are basic amenities. Taking my own constituency as an example, nearly 20 per cent. of my rural dwellings are still without mains electricity. One of the reasons for this is that as a result of the operation of the Electricity Act the electricity board can pay for only as much rural development as it can subsidise out of its urban profits. Consequently, if one lives in a largely rural area, it means that one has a low rate of electrification owing to the absence of urban receipts.
Last December the First Secretary set up a joint inquiry composed of the Electricity Council and the National Farmers' Union to look into the question of rural development charges for electricity. The report was completed last May but it has not yet seen the light of day. I believe that there is a case for an Exchequer grant, possibly added to the Annual Price Review, in order to ensure that we have 95 per cent. electrification in all our rural areas. It is outrageous that we still find farms with parrafin lamps, privies at the bottom of the garden and pumps in the yard for the main water supply. It is iniquitous. Who can be surprised that in those conditions people leave the countryside?
Communications have been mentioned. In August we have queues about five miles long outside Exeter and Torquay. This sort of thing will not help the export drive and the tourist industry. If we cannot build massive roads overnight then I agree with the view taken by my


hon. Friend the Member for Bodmin in the debate on roads that we might consider the possibility of paying for our roads by means of loans and then having tolls paid voluntarily by those who choose to use those roads.
As another example, take our hospitals. By and large, they are very out of date. I have a waiting list of 1,200 for a hospital built 120 years ago. Take also many of our schools, particularly primary schools. One finds that in many of them a bucket is the only form of sanitation, many have no electric light and many are probably under threat of closure. I must say that, having regard to some of the structures, it would be a good thing if some of them would fall down without our having to wait for the closing of the school.
We have our scheduled areas. Most of the Duchy of Cornwall and the Bide-ford and Ilfracombe areas have a persistently high rate of unemployment. Our experience is that whenever an application is made to B.O.T.A.C. the delay is a minimum of six months, and very little comes out at the end. I do not believe that the Local Employment Act is working as it was intended to do. The procedure is thoroughly inefficient and takes a very long time. Perhaps I am unjust and should not say that it is inefficient. Perhaps I ought to say that the system tries to exact the same security and tests as a merchant bank or an ordinary commercial bank. But the object of the exercise is that the scheme should take a greater risk having regard to the social benefits which would flow if industry were set up in those areas and employment were given to those who are at present out of work.
Finally, I want to say a word about Bristol. I do not believe that Bristol is the logical centre for the South-West. Its problems do not represent the problems of the South-West, which is an area of its own. It is as different from Bristol as the Highlands of Scotland are from the Lowlands. I believe that we must have a regional centre at Plymouth or Taunton or Exeter. Any of the three would be acceptable. My view is that Plymouth would probably be best. We must have regional representatives, elected and answerable to the electorate, and considerable power must be given to these boards over the issuing of I.D.C.s, the

planning of housing and the co-ordinating of road and rail communications. The experience of Mid-Wales has shown that a small factory employing only 200 people will bring economic benefit to nearly 2,000 people living in the surrounding area.
I am certain that a tremendous amount can be done after we have improved our communications and after we get more speedy action from the Board of Trade to encourage investment in the area. Otherwise we shall have a position where our school leavers will continue to leave the area, thus leaving a depopulated area behind them, and choking up our main centres in the South-East and the "coffin" area north of London reaching up to Manchester.
In the South-West there is a spirit and a determination to help ourselves. In the past few years much has been done by local authorities and others, but I hope that the Government will realise that we have not had our fair share of the allocation for roads, that we have suffered from low wages and de-population and that we are impatient to have something one about it all.

2.25 p.m.

Mr. James Scott-Hopkins: I join in with other hon. Members who have congratulated the hon. Member for Bodmin (Mr. Bessell) on initiating this debate and bringing the subject to the notice of the House, and also on his very forceful and thoughtful speech. We are overrunning our timetable a little, but we will do our best to keep within the limits which have been laid down.
One of the most important things to ask the Parliamentary Secretary is what has been done by the Regional Board and the Regional Council since they were set up some time ago and their members were appointed, and what have been the effects on the region of those appointments. In passing, I must say how much I agree with the hon. Member for Bodmin and others that it is wrong to try to link Bristol and the Severn Basin with the rest of the South-West, covering parts of Somerset, Cornwall and Devon, because they constitute two completely different areas with different problems. It is difficult to understand how Bristol, if it were made the centre, could appreciate what was going on in the rest of the area—what, for instance, were the different problems in the South-Western


tip of Cornwall and in Devon and the other parts of Somerset.
No mention was made by the hon. Member for Bodmin of the functions of the Regional Board. It is a body with executive powers, and we want to know what it is doing. We understand that it is advised by the Regional Council. The body has great advisory powers and capacity, and, therefore, presumably has great capacity to influence the Board and the Minister. We should like to know what it thinks about things. We want to know, for instance, whether it is thinking about establishing a new town or increasing the population of any particular part of the South-West.
I hope that we shall be told that it is not thinking of making Taunton an overspill centre for Bristol or the Midlands. This is the natural thing that I should expect from some body based in Bristol, but I hope that that is not what the Parliamentary Secretary will tell us. If the Council is suggesting some overspill provision, I hope that he will tell us that it will be in Plymouth or Exeter.
Perhaps the Parliamentary Secretary will tell us what the Regional Council is thinking about the future development of towns in the South-West. Does the Council envisage a prosperous future development for Plymouth, with the provision of factories, and so on? If so, what advice is it giving to the First Secretary, and what action is the Board itself taking in this matter? What is being done? It is very difficult to discern, since the inception of the new concept of regional boards and councils, one single constructive thing which they have done. Perhaps the Parliamentary Secretary will enlighten us about this.
I turn to the question of a survey. I am sure that all my hon. Friends and also the hon. Members on the Liberal Benches have one object in mind—and I am sure that the Parliamentary Secretary has, too—and that is to try to get something done for the South-West, as a region, which will be of benefit to those who live in it and those who work in it. But before anything constructive can be achieved one needs a survey of the use of the land and the natural resources. That is essential.
Some time ago I asked whether the Government were to use as the basis of

all their discussions the survey which was carried out by the six counties, Part I of which was published. I do not know whether Part II has been undertaken or whether the Regional Council has recommended to the Minister that Part II of the survey should be carried out. I do not know, nor does anybody else. Perhaps the Parliamentary Secretary can tell us what advice he has had from these anonymous gentlemen. But I must not be unfair. They are not anonymous. Their names have been published. But their deliberations are unknown. We do not know what they are thinking.
It is vital that we should know what the uses of the various natural resources are to be. Minerals and tin have been mentioned. I hope that the tin industry in Cornwall will be developed. I do not pretend to be an expert on the subject, but I hope that the Government will be able to facilitate what needs to be done. I do not think that a grant from the Government is necessary to carry out a survey. Private industry should be capable of carrying out such a survey if it thinks it worth while, but, certainly, Government facilities should be put at its disposal and it should be encouraged to undertake the work to see whether revival of the industry is possible and to what further extent minerals exist.
China clay and coal have been mentioned and these link up with the communications aspect. What recommendations has the Regional Council made concerning the development of the rail system in the south-west of the region? If the china clay industry could be persuaded for commercial reasons to use the railways, and if a great deal more of the coal for the area were carried by train, then both branch and main lines could become stronger economically. What recommendations are being made to encourage this?
It would be a good thing if the Government took action to bring about this change. Certainly the coal industry should send coal by rail to Devon and Cornwall. At the moment, a certain amount is sent by road, but most by sea. It seems rather foolish to have not very good coal from the North creeping round the coast by boat to the West Country when better coal from the Midlands could


go by rail. The Government could and should take action, but I suppose that they will not do so unless the Regional Council recommends it.
As my hon. Friend the Member for Dorset, South (Mr. Evelyn King) and the hon. Member for Devon, North (Mr. Thorpe) said, this is not only a problem of unemployment, although that exists in the winter months especially in large parts of south-west Devon, Cornwall and Dorset and is a grievous problem, for it reaches a high level. There is also the low wage factor. Once again, one must weigh these matters up. I hope that the hon. Member for Bodmin will accept that I enjoyed the peroration at the end of his speech, but I wish he had confined himself to it. Earlier, when outlining the prospects of the South-West, he said that we were an ageing population.
The hon. Gentleman knows that that is not true. There are many young people who are only too keen to stay there. By saying that our population is becoming older and older the hon. Gentleman was hardly being conducive to encouraging industrialists to open new factories in the South-West, for they will not want to employ mainly people over 55 or 60.

Mr. Bessell: I was quoting statistics published in the survey which showed comparative figures. The proportion of old people, as a result of depopulation, is much higher than in the rest of the country.

Mr. Scott-Hopkins: I accept the figures. I was drawing the hon. Gentleman's attention to the fact, however, that he elaborated on them and that the closing part of his speech was much more helpful from the point of view of encouraging industry to go to the area.
We must keep a balance between the wish to develop light industry and existing types of industry and preserving the attractions of the tourist industry. This year, given a certain amount of good weather—which we have not yet had—we can expect a record tourist trade. But if we develop the South-West as the Midlands were developed in the last century, the tourist trade will go out of the window. As my hon. Friend the Member for Dorset, South, said, one expects more light industry to go there and that is right and proper. Some type of

development is also needed for the roads but great motorways sprawling across Devon, Cornwall and Somerset would not add to the beauties of the area.
Developments of industrial sites such as those in Switzerland are something that we should take note of. Has the Regional Council given advice to the First Secretary of State concerning this problem? When overspills and new towns are being considered, where is it recommended that there should be renewed and increased industrial development in Cornwall, Devon and Somerset?
I hope that Exeter and Plymouth will get their fair share of industrial development. They could and should be the growing cities of the South-West. The Camborne and Falmouth triangle and the Bodmin and St. Austell triangle could be developed industrially. But if we have such development, then we cannot, at the same time, have our rail communications taken away. Yet that is what is happening in my constituency, I hope that there will be no further rail closures of any type in those areas where there is a possibility, or indeed, a probability, of future development until a decision is taken as to what kind of development is to take place.
The Regional Council is silent on these things and so is the First Secretary of State. I have an awful feeling that the Joint Under-Secretary of State will also be silent, but we must know these things before we can make any judgments. The South West and Cornwall want to be put much more in the picture.

Mr. Thorpe: I entirely agree with what the hon. Gentleman is saying about not closing railway lines until we know what industrial development there is to be. But, in fact, the situation is worse than that. Railway lines leading to areas which are development districts are scheduled for closure.

Mr. Scott-Hopkins: I am aware of that. Some happen to be in my constituency and there are probably more in the hon. Gentleman's. But I hope that what is said today will bring home to the First Secretary of State and the Minister of Transport the urgent necessity of holding up these operations until a decision has been made on development. In areas where industrial development is


possible, probable and in some cases vital, these moves should be postponed until the Government know both what should be done and what will be done for industrial development.
But agriculture also needs development. The agricultural White Papers do not deal with the priorities which are of vital interest to agriculture in the South-West. The White Papers are important, but do not tap at the fundamental difficulties of the agricultural industry especially in the South-West—for instance, the level of production and its corollary, the level and strength of import controls. The Government have hopelessly failed to tackle these issues and the measures announced yesterday will have no effect upon them.
I hope that the hon. Gentleman will say something about development. The First Secretary of State talked about setting up a sub-committee in Plymouth. Although the right hon. Gentleman has said that the Regional Council will definitely have its offices in Bristol, he has said that he has not yet decided against having a sub-committee office in Plymouth. There are 70,000 sq. ft. of office space at North Road Station, Plymouth, now and I hope that the hon. Gentleman will be able to say that the sub-committee will have its office there. Is it not nonsense that more than £2 million should be spent by British Railways on huge offices at North Road Station, Plymouth, and that British Railways should then "up stakes" and go to Bristol leaving that office space empty and apparently with no future tenant? What is to be the future of that accommodation? I hope that the hon. Gentleman will be able to give us some hope, or at least tell us what the Regional Council is recommending.
Since the Council has been set up, not very much has happened, but a great deal remains to be done. I agree with the hon. Member for Bodmin that we in the South-West are not an ageing population in heart or spirit.
Many of our young people want to stay there if they are given the opportunity to do so. We want the hon. Gentleman to live up to the fine words and promises of himself and his right hon. Friends before, during and since the election.

So far, we have seen no sign of that happening. We want to be assured that action will be taken urgently and that the statement of the Chancellor of the Exchequer will not act as a brake for the next six months, until after the next election.

2.41 p.m.

The Joint Under-Secretary of State for Economic Affairs (Mr. William Rodgers): As the hon. Member for Cornwall, North (Mr. Scott-Hopkins) has given me precisely nine minutes in which to reply to the debate, half of what I expected, he will understand if I do not go as fully as I might otherwise into the many issues which he raised in a rather longer speech.
Like other hon. Members, I was impressed by the coherence and elegance of the hon. Member for Bodmin (Mr. Bessell). However, I should remind him that the first debate this Session on regional development in the South West was initiated by the right hon. Member for Taunton (Mr. du Cann) who, I am sorry to say, is not here today. We all know that his time and energies have been substantially absorbed lately by extra-mural duties of one sort or another. I am also sorry that my hon. Friend the Member for Falmouth and Camborne (Mr. Hayman) is not present, and I am sure that on both sides of the House there will be a general wish that he will soon fully recover. He has played a substantial part over a long period in drawing attention to the problems of the South West and particularly those of Cornwall.
There has been some criticism of our new planning machinery and perhaps I should spend some time dealing with it. I am sorry if the hon. Member for Bodmin was disappointed by the absence of my right hon. Friend the First Secretary, although I do not think that he should have been surprised. I had the opportunity of reading in the Western Daily Press a fairly full account of what the hon. Gentleman intended to say, quite apart from a letter which I received this morning. I was interested to note that the hon. Gentleman or the Western Daily Press thought that
On most points Mr. Brown will trot out soothing, bland replies …
It has not been my experience to hear my right hon. Friend trot out soothing, bland replies.

Mr. Bessell: I must assure the hon. Gentleman that whatever was said in the Western Daily Press was not said by the hon. Member for Bodmin.

Mr. Rodgers: I am glad to hear that the hon. Gentleman has very good judgment in this respect.
Both the hon. Gentleman and the hon. Member for Cornwall, North took a rather melodramatic view of the functions of the Regional Council. I would like to know from them—and if we had more time I would be ready to give way—whether they feel that no machinery should have been set up for regional planning in the South-West. I think that the view of the hon. Member for Bodmin is that we should have gone much further and had elected regional government.
Our view is that, whatever developments lie in the future, the right thing now is to set up effective machinery for getting action on regional planning. As the House knows, the task of the new machinery, both the Council and the Board, is to prepare a regional plan and assist in its implementation. Granted that we are going that far, it is far more important that the Council should function effectively and give good advice to the Government and that there should be genuine partnership between the Government and the regions in this respect than that a body should be set up which might well become a talking shop.
It is true that the Government necessarily deal with many confidential matters. If we want the regional councils to work effectively and to give good advice to the Government in knowledge and not in ignorance, we must ask them to make a part of their proceedings confidential. Certainly, in the short run, this will be the best way in which to get a regional plan and to get it fully implemented in a way which will commend itself to both sides of the House.
It has been said that the Council is only advisory. However, its job is to advise not the Board, but the Government. Over a very wide range of subjects the Council has been asked for its advice and, consequently, the Government will make much wiser decisions because, for the first time, the Government will be genuinely consulting the people on the

spot, the people with practical experience of the region's problems.
Hon. Members have referred to the differences between Devon and Cornwall and the rest of the region. I am very ready to concede that there are differences, but, as I said in our debate on 4th November, the fact that the two areas are different in a number of respects is no reason why they should be planned separately. On the contrary, if one is suffering from unemployment and low wages, as I agree, and rural depopulation, as I agree, and the problems of communication, there is good reason why it should be planned together with the other part of the region where industry is rapidly growing and where population is increasing.
If we consider them both together, we are more likely to get policies for the South-West which will be fully effective in all respects and by which the stronger parts contribute to those parts of the region which are going through periods of difficulty. I hope that this policy will be pursued. The machinery has been set up and the decisions have been made.
On a number of occasions, we have discussed where the regional centre should be, the regional centre and not the regional capital as the hon. Member for Devon, North (Mr. Thorpe) described it, whether it should be at Bristol or elsewhere. The job of all hon. Members who want to see the prosperity of the South West increase is to accept the machinery and to make sure that it works. In parentheses, I am sure that Professor Tress, who is playing a very energetic part in helping the region to grow, would be ready at any time to meet hon. Members to discuss the region's problems. As the Chairman of the Council, he is accessible and not only will I inform him of all the matters raised today, but it may be in the interests of hon. Members to meet him and to discuss the problems with which they are especially concerned.
There is agreement about the problems, of course. In Devon and Cornwall there are the problems of rural depopulation, the need for further new light industry, the need to develop tourism. As the House knows, my hon. Friend the Minister of State, Board of Trade, visited the West Country on 28th May and at Exeter met a number of those concerned


with the South West. We intend to consider the various problems to see what more can be done.
The hon. Member for Truro (Mr. Geoffrey Wilson) referred to the relative advantages of Cornwall and Brittany. Perhaps I can make one remark which will surprise some people. I spent a holiday in Cornwall only at Whitsun and I must say that it is now possible to eat as well in Cornwall as in Brittany. This is an unusual recommendation, which alas, cannot be applied to all parts of the country.
Our new Economic Planning Council is not only to meet in Bristol. It has already visited various parts of the region and will be visiting others in the near future. It has met in Bristol, Taunton and Exeter and very shortly will meet in Plymouth. Here again, they will be seeing at first hand the very varied problems of the area of the far South-West, as well as of urban and industrial growth in the Cheltenham, Gloucester, Bristol, area.
I wish I could go on much longer, because there is a great deal that I want to say. I think that the important thing is that a number of points have been made today which we shall be looking at. We have the very greatest feelings for the problems of Devon and Cornwall—

Mr. Evelyn King: And Dorset.

Mr. Rodgers: We are deeply concerned with the problems there, and with Dorset as well, but I think it is only right, as the hon. Gentleman raised Cornwall, that I should pay particular attention to it. We recognise that it is not simply a holiday region, though it is a very pleasant one, and I hope that nothing said today will make anyone believe anything to the contrary. It is not only a holiday region but a region with very real difficulties. It is not for me to ask for patience, but I hope I can ask for support for the new regional planning machinery and for the development of a proper plan for development in the South-West.
It may be a 10-year plan; we have to look a good way ahead, and then take the necessary steps to see that the South-West shares fully in the prosperity which Britain as a whole, I believe, will be enjoying in the future.

HOUSING (NEW AND EXPANDING TOWNS)

2.52 p.m.

Mr. W. F. Deedes: I want to raise the subject of housing densities in new and expanding towns.

Sir Geoffrey de Freitas: On a point of order, Mr. Deputy-Speaker. What protection have I, as someone who has the last Adjournment, from the great length of overrunning of these Adjournments today, and the fact that, I am told, a Royal Commission will interrupt the proceedings, and we go off and indulge in the ridiculous and ludicrous exercise of hearing a lot of Bills read out, and as a result my constituents suffer?

Mr. Deputy-Speaker (Sir Samuel Storey): That does not raise a point of order. These times are only arranged as a general guide. We started these debates very late, and in the first debate some time was saved. The last debate has taken its full time. I hope that in future debates right hon. and hon. Gentlemen will try to curtail their speeches as much as possible, to make up for the delay which has already occurred, and the delay which will occur when the Royal Commission is heard.

Mr. John Boyd-Carpenter: Further to that point of order. I do not know whether it is strictly in order, but is it appropriate for an hon. Gentleman, who himself has represented the Crown overseas, to refer to the giving of the Royal Assent as a ludicrous exercise?

Sir G. de Freitas: Further to that point of order. I will waste no more time on the procedure under which we work. To go along there and have the Clerk read out the Titles of the Bills is a ludicrous exercise. I represent some of the citizens of Northamptonshire today.

Mr. Deputy-Speaker: I deprecate such language. The hon. Gentleman must be courteous to the other place.

Mr. Jeremy Thorpe: Further to that point of order. Am I not right in thinking that we are summoned to another place, but that it is up to this place to decide whether the time is convenient to go along?

Mr. Deputy-Speaker: That may be so, but I think that we should get along now.

Mr. Deedes: I shall do my utmost to make sure that the hon. Member for Kettering (Sir G. de Freitas) gets his time. I think that he was not present earlier, when I registered, on behalf of him and others, protests about the first 40 minutes of our day going to Government announcements. I now want to spend a few moments explaining what this debate is about.
Twenty years after the war our population is still on the move, and moving faster than ever. Any hon. Gentleman who keeps an eye on the register of electors will realise how fast this movement is. This is what is called the population explosion. The people are disposing themselves into a new pattern, and an important part in this is played by new and expanding towns. Here, particularly in the second generation of new and expanding towns, the moulds of future life are being cast. These moulds will decide, not only how this generation lives, but perhaps how their children will live, and what sort of people, certainly among the younger generations they will become. This seems to me a matter of first importance.
A cardinal factor of these new living conditions is the space factor to be observed, or in a word, density, and that is what I want to talk about. My particular concern is the town of Ashford. We are an expanding town—just what we are to expand to it is difficult to discover. Our population is now 29,000 and our targets have been variously mentioned as 100,000 and 250,000. Perhaps the South-East Study, when it comes, will give us the answer. The only firm figure that we have on paper is an agreement with the Greater London Council to build about 4,250 houses for London by 1975, for about 19,500 people, an increase of about 66 per cent.
That is a very large operation for a very small town. It is not rendered any easier by the fact that we have not one but two objectives. The first is to relieve London's congestion, something in which a number of hon. Gentlemen have a very close interest—to accommodate what is elegantly called, "overspill". The second objective, I hope, is to build for

Ashford a town worthy of the name. I will not say that those objectives are in conflict, but they do not always naturally go hand in hand.
In all this there seems to be no mastermind. We have many masters, we have the Ministry of Housing and Local Government, represented by the hon. Gentleman the Parliamentary Secretary, we have the Kent County Council, the Greater London Council and Ashford itself. All have their own spheres of responsibility and their own special interests. We have not got, to guide us in this matter, a new town corporation. I think that we should have, but that is not immediately relevant, and, therefore, there is a good deal of ad hoc planning. What I now wish to turn to seems to be a very bad example of it.
The expansion seriously began in Ashford last October on two new estates, one called Bockhanger, in a residential suburb of Kennington, which will contribute only 360 houses, and the other, in a much earlier stage, called Stanhope. That will hold eventually, 1,425 houses. Together that represents nearly half the decade's programme. The first site, Bockhanger, is about 26 acres, of which the residential area is 21 acres. It is being built to a density of about 70 persons to the acre or, alternatively, about 12·8 acres per 1,000 people.
By comparison with these figures in Ashford, modern standards elsewhere show that this is a very high density, in my view an alarmingly high density. It compares with an average of between 30–40 persons to the acre in most of the English new towns. The Scottish new towns are rather higher. At Bracknell, residential density, and I am comparing like with like, is about 25 persons to the acre. The other extreme is at Cumbernauld, in Scotland, where there are nearer 100 persons to the acre. Most of the English new towns, if one takes it on an average, are around 33 persons to the acre in density.
The Ashford figure, around 80, compares with the figure of 55 at Basingstoke, which is another expanding town, not a new town. I refer to the Oakridge Estate, where 90 per cent. of the houses are to have gardens. At Ashford, on the Stanhope Estate, four times the size of Bockhanger, the density is going to work out at about


80 to 85 persons to the acre. This is to be achieved only after the Ashford Council protested against a proposal by the Ministry of Housing and Local Government that the density should be no less than 100 to the acre. There was some correspondence, which will be of no interest to the House, which passed between the council and the Ministry, between January and March of this year, which the hon. Gentleman will know something about, and the details of which I need not go into. I am bound to say that I find it a little astonishing—this is the source of my disquiet—that the Ministry's policy on density should make such a proposal possible.
In reply to a Question which I tabled to the Minister, the Joint Parliamentary Secretary observed, on 6th July:
For the Bockhanger scheme the Ashford U.D.C itself proposed a net density of 80 persons per acre. At an early stage in preparation of the plans for the Stanhope area, officers of the Department suggested that a net density of 100 persons per acre might produce the most economical housing scheme."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 6th July, 1965; Vol. 715, c. 193.]
I ask the House to note that—"the most economical housing scheme".
Ashford's main objection to a density of 100 is the high proportion of flats which would be required to meet it. This is axiomatic. The higher the density, the greater the number of flats which must be built to meet it. The reduction to 80, after protest, means that in the scheme there can be a higher proportion of two-storey houses.
Those are the facts. I should like to say why more generally they seem to me immensely disquieting. First, there is the question of the future of these houses. Some observations on this matter appeared in the June issue of the Town and Country Planning Journal. They were written by Dr. Robin Best, of Wye College, who is, I think accepted as an authority on land use and housing development. I am indebted to him for some assistance in this matter. These are his conclusions on the houses themselves:
As the standard of living rises and the stock of houses increases and diversifies in future decades it seems quite probable that these new estates will become embarrassing white elephants to which it will be more and more difficult to attract tenants. Needless to

say, the social and financial consequences of this will be a serious matter for towns like Ashford.
I cannot resist the conclusion that this reflects some weakness of thought in the Ministry of Housing. Dr. Best goes on to say:
It may well be asked how such unrealistic planning proposals came to be made at all. Just what criteria have been used for arriving at these unfortunate decisions?
That is the point: what criteria were used?
The second point, which is perhaps more important, is the people themselves. What sort of people are we catering for, not only in the expanding town of Ashford, but in expanding towns elsewhere? The motives of people who move from London are mixed, but we know that 30 per cent. of the people moving out of London are represented by children under the age of 10 compared with about 15 per cent. for the country as a whole. Therefore, these are young families, and that has a considerable bearing on the amount of space that we should consider for them. It certainly has a bearing on the number of five-storey flats which should be considered within these estates. People certainly will not desire to exchange one set of overcrowded conditions in London for another set elsewhere. Admittedly, the need for a house may drive them into doing so for the time being.
These estates are not only for today, but for tomorrow. In my view, they must anticipate some of tomorrow's needs. Every perceptible trend in this society of ours and all experience elsewhere suggests that these people will want more and not less space. We have entered the era of the urban region, which is familiar in America but less familiar here, with all that that implies for land, design and density. If densities in places like Ashford are pitched too high, one of the longterm results is, in my estimation, predictable: a high proportion of people will move out, whether the planners want it or not, and will settle in a wide belt of surrounding villages, and ultimately that will create a far larger demand for land than would be necessitated by granting more land for lower densities now.
The Minister is entitled to reply that I am on the verge of a doctrine somewhat at variance with that propagated for a great many years by members of my party


representing agricultural constituencies, namely, that agricultural land is at a premium and that, to save it, we must remorselessly build upwards and that all other considerations must be subordinated to the needs of agriculture. I plead partly guilty here, although this is not a doctrine which I have preached for some years. I am sure that we must think carefully about this matter. We must not squander agricultural land. Of course, we cannot have garden cities everywhere, but I am sure that we must strike the right balance. We must not starve expanding towns of the land needed to meet the conditions which modern requirements demand.
I share with Dr. Best and others the view that densities are tending to become too high, not only in Ashford, but elsewhere, to provide this generation, let alone the next, with what it wants and with what it is able to afford. I know that there is a school of thought—I do not belong to it myself—which thinks that many people regard their homes as dormitories, and that their car, giving access to the open spaces and the sea, represents a kind of density of its own, that the car has become part of the density. I should like more scientific evidence of that theory before accepting that everywhere garages should replace gardens—as indeed they will do on part of one of these estates. Garage space has been subtracted from the area of the dwelling and the curtilage.
My view is that densities have been dictated not only by the desire to preserve agricultural land, but by cost considerations—by the idea that higher densities produce a marginal but important saving on site costs. Although high building normally means higher cost, admittedly industrial building may redress the balance. Costs must weigh, but not overwhelmingly.
My last word to the Joint Parliamentary Secretary concerns what I think the Ministry should do. First, the Ministry should overhaul its thinking and its guidance on the subject of density. Is it a consistent policy, or is it, as I suspect, subject to the ideas of particular officials? Consistency does not mean identical densities everywhere. It means, broadly horses for courses—applying by scientifically-based thinking the right solutions in the right places and giving guidance to councils which are not always well equipped

to deal with a large subject like this on their own behalf. There is a need for more homework and research to be done, particularly in respect of expanding towns and the special populations which are going to them. We must not rehouse people by hit or miss methods.
I confess that my mood is somewhat conditioned by a recent visit to Kirkby, that sorry bit of social planning outside Liverpool. I will not have that tragedy repeated in the town of Ashford if I can help it; once is enough. We must face the fact that a great part of England is about to become an urban region and that for millions of people that is tomorrow's horizon. A great deal of health and happiness is involved.
I am sure—and no doubt the Parliamentary Secretary will agree with me—that we must be master of the right techniques. We must contrive that urban development of this kind in rural England is not, as it is traditionally represented, a dead loss to amenity, environment and national resources and merely a negative process of replacing contented cows with discontented human beings. Given the landscape architect, arboriculture and a number of things which we are not using properly, we can give environmental satisfaction to those who live in the urban regions. But we have a lot to learn. We must start our homework with a thorough look at the density question and decide what we want densities to be in the towns of tomorrow.

3.9 p.m.

Sir Anthony Meyer: My right hon. Friend the Member for Ashford (Mr. Deedes) has drawn an alarming picture of what can happen when housing densities are too high in new towns and on new housing estates. I should like to depart slightly from my right hon. Friend's thesis and make a plea for widely variegated standards of density within housing estates or new towns.
There are in my constituency two out-of-town Greater London Council estates which are of fairly uniform density. They provide nice houses and gardens. The other day, as is my wont, I was paying calls on people living in one of those Greater London Council housing estates and I discovered two things. I discovered that a surprisingly large number of them,


mainly people coming down from London, particularly North Paddington, insisted on telling me that they proposed to vote Conservative at the next election. That was very gratifying.
What was rather less gratifying was that an equally large number of the people told me that they were not very happy in their nice new homes and gardens. I could not altogether find out from them the exact cause of their unhappiness, but I think I know what it is. It is the complete absence of any kind of community sense, the complete absence of feeling that they belong in the place in which they have arrived. That is partly due to poor transport facilities.
This is a very general complaint which would be heard from all hon. Members who have constituencies around the London area. It is difficult for these people to get from where they live to the centre of the town for amusement, cultural activities and the rest. It is also due to the fact that in these housing estates there is a woeful shortage of shops, pubs, post offices and amenities of any kind.
The reason, I suggest, why these facilities are so sparse on estates of that kind has something to do with the uniform fairly low densities. We are creating a sort of suburban desert in these housing estates with their immensely long rows of two-storey houses. There is not sufficient concentration of population at any point on the estate to attract shops or pubs. Because of this, we are not evolving a satisfying pattern of life for the people who live on these estates and who make up a surprisingly high proportion of the country's population. If we could create pockets of high-density housing within each estate, we could, I believe, help to improve the pattern of life and of the people who live on the estates.
Of course, there are difficulties. People do not like living in flats, particularly families who have children. Flats are very unattractive for families with young children. There is, however, a stage in the life of any family when a flat is not only acceptable but is a preferable form of accommodation. For married couples who have not yet had children or for couples whose children have grown up,

a flat is a perfectly acceptable place in which to live. The point is that in between, there is a period in the development of a family when a flat is an unacceptable place in which to live.
In that connection, I was glad to see the suggestion put forward by my hon. Friend the Member for Gloucestershire, South (Mr. Corfield) and Mr. Geoffrey Rippon in a recent pamphlet suggesting that one of the causes of our troubles is the habit of giving indefinite tenancies to people who get council houses. Here is one possible key with which to unlock the problem. If we could give council house tenants a limited lease, this would help us to get greater mobility in the allocation of accommodation of this sort, so that we could thereby make flats a much more attractive proposition for families when they are first married. They could be given the tenancy of a flat for a couple of years with a fairly reasonable expectation that a house would become available for them later in their married life when they had a young family who wished to run about in the garden.
I should like to hear that the Government are giving attention to this side of the matter and that they have in mind the barrenness which results from creating these miles and miles of two-storey dwellings, which, although in themselves attractive places with nice gardens, are basically suburban deserts and places in which the human spirit withers and decays no matter what attractions are provided. I hope that this side of the problem will engage the attention of the Government together with the powerful points made by my right hon. Friend the Member for Ashford in favour of providing enough space for families in which to spread themselves.

3.15 p.m.

Mr. A. P. Costain: I congratulate my right hon. Friend the Member for Ashford (Mr. Deedes) on introducing this subject. It is a matter in which I have always had a great interest, dating from the time when I was a small schoolboy, when my father took me round the Port Sunlight development, which was the first of the garden city type.
My right hon. Friend has properly referred to the swings and the pendulums,


which has so often been the tendency when vie have considered new developments, particularly after the end of the war. My right hon. Friend said that density in new towns started at a low level and has gradually increased. We have to accept that as a nation we are short of land. We do not, however, seem to be able to make up our minds about the right use of that land and how we will use it also for social purposes.
My hon. Friend the Member for Eton and Slough (Sir A. Meyer) has referred to the fact that flats are suitable only at a certain stage of a family's life. We should consider for a moment the translation of densities into dwellings, because that is what densities really are. It might help the House if I give the result of some of my calculations. Basically, my idea of economical building according to density is that if we are to have densities of 200 to the acre, the accommodation must be in the form of flats. A density of 75 to the acre could be in terraced maisonettes, which are not a very satisfactory form of development because it is difficult to plan a terraced maisonette.
When working on densities of 50 to the acre, one must think of terraced houses. Terraced houses have gone through phases. We started with the Nash terraces when things were done properly. After the 1914–18 war, we got down to the terraced houses which qualified for Government subsidy in order to overcome the density problem. When one then goes up or down the scale, according to whichever way one regards it, semi-detached houses accommodate about 25 people to the acre and detached houses 12 to the acre.
The trouble today is that there is a much greater hunger for land. Few people realise that a modern clover-leaf junction on a motorway takes up something like 100 acres of land, in addition to the demands made by airfields and other purposes. Quite often, we in this House have had debates concerning the acquisition of land. Quite rightly, our schools, hospitals and other buildings are all being surrounded by greater built-up areas. The problem can only be properly assessed by treating the areas of the country on the basis of big regions.
My right hon. Friend has referred to densities of 100 to the acre in Ashford. In any comprehensive development there are areas where a density of 100 to the acre would be entirely fair, provided that there was sufficient surrounding land to make this possible. The main necessity, however, is to avoid at all costs the kind of urban sprawl which we saw between the wars. Fond as I am of my right hon. Friend and his constituency, I do not want to see it sprawling into mine. I would prefer him to build to higher densities in flats.
My hon. Friend the Member for Eton and Slough has made an important point concerning the different stages of life when flats and houses are the right forms of accommodation. What I think we must have—I have mentioned this in earlier debates—is more flexibility. I see no reason at all in planning an estate, a local authority housing estate in particular, why provision cannot be made for elderly people to live in a section of a house. I do not see why not. Every elderly persons wants a place of his own. Equally, he does not want to be forgotten; elderly people want to feel they are wanted by their grandchildren. With more ingenuity in planning this can be provided for. It can be done by having in a house, probably on the ground floor, a single-room flat—a bedroom and kitchenette—which the elderly can use. This would have this advantage, that by the mere passage of time it is more than likely that, when the children of the house have grown up and want a bedroom each, the grandparents will have passed on. By having that sort of planning we could have greater flexibility, but that sort of planning cannot be contained in any formula we have for density. Will the Minister see if he can do something to help about that?

3.21 p.m.

Mr. John Boyd-Carpenter: I am sure the House is indebted to my right hon. Friend the Member for Ashford (Mr. Deedes) for raising a subject of very great importance. My only regret is that it has not been possible to discuss it earlier in the Session in a fuller House, because it raises issues, as I am sure the joint Parliamentary Secretary will agree, of great seriousness for large parts of our future development.
None the less, I think the debate will have served a very good turn if we can elicit from the Joint Parliamentary Secretary the answers to two questions: first of all, what measure of guidance is given by the Joint Parliamentary Secretary's right hon. Friend to those responsible for the administration both of the new towns—the development corporations and to the appropriate authorities in the case of expanding towns; and secondly, it, as I suspect, that guidance is somewhat scanty, has the right hon. Gentleman in mind any special clarification and amplification of it?
I am not asking—I do not think the hon. Gentleman will misunderstand me—for his right hon. Friend to lay down a rigid rule applicable to each of the new towns or expanded towns whatever their circumstances. That would plainly be foolish. On the other hand, I think there is a great deal in what my right hon. Friend said, that the present position is of a somewhat hit-or-miss character, and I think that both sides of the House will take the view that, at any rate, the principles in determining density should not be left to those authorities but that a great deal of guidance—guidance, not direct control—should be given by the Minister.
After all, the money in the new towns is provided entirely—and in the expanded towns very largely—by the central Government, and these developments must be a major part of the housing and rehousing programme of any Government. The Minister has himself placed great reliance on this method of development and has announced his intention to make a number of new towns, and it is not unfair to ask that guidance should be given and what it is. Some of them, I may say, are new towns which were planned by my right hon. Friend the Member for Leeds, North-East (Sir K. Joseph). I am not seeking to make a point either for or against the Joint Parliamentary Secretary. I am only saying that to emphasise the importance of this matter to our system of housing and rehousing.
I think that because guidance is particularly needed there is a clash of considerations. There is, on the one hand, the question of amenity for those who live in these towns. My hon. Friend the Member for Eton and Slough (Sir A. Meyer) brought out very eloquently the

Englishman's desire for a little bit of garden and his own front door. This is a feeling which is very strong in our people in this country—stronger, I think, than among our European neighbours. Indeed, I recall that when, before the war, I was contesting—I hasten to add, unsuccessfully—a constituency in the East End of London for the then London County Council it was held against the party which I was then representing that although we had carried out a very considerable amount of rehousing we had done so, in that crowded area, in the shape of blocks of flats. People felt that what they wanted were little houses.
I think opinion has moved since then, and I think it is accepted as all but inescapable that those who want to live or have to live in or near the centres of the great conurbations will have to make up their minds to do what many of our continental neighbours do, and live in tall buildings. That is not, of course, a necessity in all cases in the new and expanded towns, and many of the people who seek to go to live in those towns do so because they want to live the sort of life which a separate house with a garden makes possible, with all the advantages it means for young children. My hon. Friend referred to this, and these are powerful considerations.
On the other hand, there is the consideration of cost, which is one which one who has served at the Treasury can never wholly shake himself clear of, and there is also the question, vital in this crowded island, of the proper use of land. I certainly do not intend to intervene in the border dispute between my right hon. Friend the Member for Ashford and my hon. Friend the Member for Folkestone and Hvthe (Mr. Costain), but the proper allocation of land as between new towns on the one hand, and agricultural use and other uses on the other, is a crucial question, particularly in those parts of the country like the Midlands and the South-East where the shortage of land is increasingly acute.
These are major questions which simply cannot be left to hit-or-miss considerations and it is because there is here a balance of national considerations—amenity, well being, pleasantness of towns, on the one hand; cost and land use on the other—that it is very important that the Government should give as


clear a line of guidance in principle as they can.
I should, however, like to add one comment. I am personally very glad that this debate is to be answered by the Joint Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Housing and Local Government, partly because he comes from the Department which really has the power in the matter, and partly because, if he will allow me to say so, and I can do so without doing him irreparable damage, he has himself a great knowledge of the subject matter.
It is an extraordinary commentary on the Department that is supposed to have responsibility for land use, the Ministry of Land and Natural Resources, that not only is it not replying to this debate, but it is not represented on the Front Bench opposite. I have made the point before, and I shall make it again, that decisions as to lard use, which are major decisions of public policy, will not be taken effectively while we have an administrative system in which responsibility for them is given to one Minister, and the reality of power and decision lies with another.
That is exemplified today on this issue by the fact that the Joint Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Housing and Local Government, whom we are glad to see here, is to reply, while the Ministry of Land and Natural Resources has shown no interest in the matter. It was also shown during the early hours of yesterday morning when my hon. Friend the Member for The Wrekin (Mr. William Yates) raised a very important point on the allocation and use of land between two forms of public authority, and was replied to by the Minister of State for Education and Science.
I must put on record that the Government are unduly handicapping themselves in dealing with this most serious problem of all in the planning sphere, the proper use of land, by the creation of this fifth wheel of the coach, the co-called Minister of Land and Natural Resources. I hope that the Joint Parliamentary Secretary will not worry about him, because, as we all know, the decision rests with the hon. Gentleman and with his right hon. Friend as they have the effective control. As this is an important issue, I hope that he will be able to answer the two questions that I put to

him—the amount of guidance already given, and his right hon. Friend's intention to amplify, clarify and expand it.

3.30 p.m

The Joint Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Housing and Local Government (Mr. James MacColl): I hope that the right hon. Gentleman will not think that the presence of my colleague from the Navy Department indicates that the Government are to build their new towns afloat in the future.

Mr. Boyd-Carpenter: No one would ever suspect the hon. Gentleman of being at sea at the Box.

Mr. MacColl: I am grateful to the right hon. Member for Ashford (Mr. Deedes) for raising this matter, because it enables me to clear up some points of misunderstanding which have been behind a certain amount of his detailed criticisms of what has been happening in Ashford.
A problem of semantics is involved in this, because there are two methods of measuring densities in terms of persons per acre. The first one, which is the one normally used, is based on the number of people expected to occupy an area. That includes the fact that some houses are under-occupied, some have families without children, some have a large number of children, and so on, and, therefore, it is less than the absolute maximum number that the area can hold.
In the Bulletin produced by the last Government to deal particularly with questions of costing, and really only costing, a new phrase was introduced—bed spaces. The point is that if one is trying to measure the cost of constructing a house, the fact that it is not to be fully occupied does not affect the issue. To measure whether one has made the best use of the land, one needs to know the number of bed spaces available, and divide that into the acreage. Confusion has arisen from the fact that the figures quoted—quite rightly; I am not suggesting that there is anything wrong with them—of 77·8 and 80 were, in fact, bed spaces and not the ordinary occupancy figure of persons per acre that is used in normal planning.

Mr. Deedes: I am aware of this difference. Would not the hon. Gentleman agree that this new phrase about bed


spaces adds enormously to the confusion of the argument? How can we make sense of the issue if we use two kinds of vocabulary?

Mr. MacColl: The right hon. Gentleman need not raise that point with me, because I have to try to understand these things within the Ministry and I find it extremely difficult to do so.
I am not trying to put this in the form of saying that this is something which the right hon. Gentleman should have understood, but there is a need to have two measures. They measure different things, and are used for different purposes. One is used for costing, and the other for measuring how many people are to be accommodated on a housing estate. One needs to use these two measures for different forms of control. I do not think that there need be any difficulty about that. The difficulty arises to some extent over the confusion between their use.
To illustrate the contrast between the persons per acre in, for example, the Bockhanger Estate at Ashford and the persons per acre being rehoused in new towns, the right hon. Gentleman referred to the pamphlet written by Dr. Best. I carried out a little research into the way in which Dr. Best had arrived at his figures. The 77·8 was clearly based on bed spaces per acre. That is common ground. But when I looked up his earlier work, "Land For New Towns" I found that it was quite clear from the conversion table in that book that he has used the figure of 3·2 persons per dwelling as a multiplier to convert dwellings per acre into persons per acre. It is, therefore, clear that in the two articles he has compared two quite different things.
If we want to see the difference we can take the case which has been referred to—the Basingstoke estate. In that case he quoted a figure of 55 persons. They were translated into bed spaces in order to arrive at the figure of 77·4. This is only slightly less than the figures at Bock-hanger, so that the difference is not very substantial. The figure which the Ashford authority has been using to calculate occupancy rather than the numbers to be provided, is 3·5, and if we multiply by 3·5 instead of by the higher number, 4·6—which refers to bed spaces—we get a substantial reduction in the density. We get a density which, although large, is not all

that much larger than the figure quoted for the new towns.
The right hon. Gentleman went on to say that one of the difficulties was that with an expanding town like Ashford there are many masters. That is a feature of the Town Development Act. It is a partnership, and it is meant to be. It is easy to slip into saying, "Ah, well, the new towns were invented by the Socialists and the expanded towns were invented by the Tories. Therefore, you have to take one or the other". Both have their advantages. My right hon. Friend has been impressed by the contribution made by some of the successful expanded towns. They impose a strain on local authorities. It is more difficult to work by agreement and conciliation than simply by having a development corporation which lays down the rules.
From the point of view of administrative tidiness new town corporations are attractive, but my right hon. Friend thinks that in some cases, where town development has been worked imaginatively, it has a very important contribution to make. London County Council, which has done a great deal and which was a pioneer in this field, has been extremely successful in working with other towns. My answer is that we want both forms of development.
The right hon. Gentleman then quoted the figure of 100 persons per acre, when that figure referred to bed spaces—so it is not quite so large as it would appear. He was very shocked by this figure, and wondered by what means it had been arrived at. I should point out that this was never taken as more than a piece of advice thrown out in discussion. When Government representatives and representatives of local authorities discussed the matter round the table this suggestion was put forward as something that would lend itself to good administration. It is not something that was insisted upon in any way.
I should have thought that it was good democracy that there should be a discussion, and that if local authorities think that a suggestion is silly it should be dropped. But when a person wonders where a figure comes from, and how anybody ever thought in terms of it, it is necessary to draw the attention of the House to Planning Bulletin No. 2—"Residential Areas—Higher Densities"


which was published when the right hon. Gentleman was in the Cabinet.
The argument of the Bulletin is that in certain areas which are called "pressure areas" it is necessary and desirable and may be absolutely mandatory—the right hon. Gentleman made this point better than I can—to be economical in the use of land because of the tremendous demand for it. It says:
The main pressure areas are within the conurbations and in the areas surrounding the conurbations beyond the green belts.
That would define Ashford very well. Paragraph 15 says:
Development or redevelopment of net densities much above 140 persons per acre, on the other hand, should seldom be necessary except in the most congested urban areas where existing densities are even higher … No one contends that family living at densities of over 100 persons per acre is ideal, but high density development meets the needs of the large number of families without small children"—

Mr. Deedes: Is that bed spaces, or on the old basis?

Mr. MacColl: It would be the old one. I do not think that even that great and powerful Administration of which the two right hon. Gentlemen were distinguished members had invented bed spaces at that time.
I want to quote the last sentence of the paragraph, which says:
Some pockets of very high density will certainly be necessary, but even at 140 persons per acre it is possible by skilful planning to provide a proportion of two- and three-storey housing for families with children.

Mr. Boyd-Carpenter: Would the hon. Gentleman tell us the date of that Bulletin?

Mr. MacColl: It was published in 1962, as the right hon. Gentleman ought to know. He should know when his right hon. Friend was in the Cabinet.
That leaves the other point that I wanted to make, and what I want to emphasise is that it does not necessarily follow—and what has been said by the hon. Member for Folkestone and Hythe (Mr. Costain) who has great experience in this field, confirms that—that you need to have discomfort, inconvenience and lack of amenities because you are making a thicker density development. It depends on the skill in design and layout and the contribution of the architect.

It is important not to get a rigid dichotomy between the two.
If it appears that I have been poking fun at it, I want to make it clear that it was a very wise document. It drew the line very clearly half-way between the extreme views that had been put forward of having very high density on the one hand and having what used to be called "prairie planning" in the new towns. One does not want either. One wants something between the two. We have a challenge now in the South-East, which my right hon. Friend the First Secretary mentioned in his statement yesterday, with a vast number of people to be re-housed and with overspill coming from London. In that situation, we are under a social duty to make the best possible use of the investment and the services provided in the way of roads and communal amenities, as well as the houses.
I will finish by answering specifically the two questions put by the right hon. Member for Kingston-upon-Thames (Mr. Boyd-Carpenter). The first one was, what measure of guidance is there? There are the Planning Bulletins, which are the general statement of policy. From time to time, they can be revised and brought up to date. They are simply for guidance; they are not laying down the law rigidly, but show the underlying philosophy behind our thinking on housing density.
Most local authorities, think that there already is far too much control through loan sanctions on what can be done. If we are to have good design we must give our architects more freedom. We cannot build up good communities if creative men are tied down by rigid rules, and I know that my right hon. Friend feels that very strongly. It is absolutely necessary to bring in the work of genius of young and creative architects who want to solve these problems and will rise to the challenge.
What we have to do—and this to some extent, answers the right hon. Gentleman's second question as to how the intentions are to be amplified—is to see that, without having too rigid control, public money, social capital, is used in the best and most effective way in accordance with the resources available in land as well as in other things.

Mr. Boyd-Carpenter: Did the hon. Gentleman say, as I understood him to


say, that the 1962 document from which he quoted is still regarded as being the proper guidance to give?

Mr. MacColl: The document was reprinted in 1963—which ties up the right hon. Gentleman effectively as to responsibility for it—but I would certainly say that the document is still in circulation and is accepted as planning policy. It is, of course, open to revision. This is not a dead field, but a dynamic field which all the time alters itself, and we intend to keep it up to date.

Mr. Boyd-Carpenter: So the Government are following the lines laid down by the Cabinet of which, as the hon. Gentleman says, I was a member.

BRITISH BASE, MALTA (FUTURE)

3.46 p.m.

Mr. Tam Dalyell: I doubt whether many serious commentators on military affairs would care to argue the value of Malta as a base on strategic grounds. It is my guess that if our actions were determined by purely strategic considerations, we would get out of Malta fairly rapidly. But Britain has economic obligations to Malta and, as I understand it, the Government's view is that these economic obligations must be honoured whatever the difficulty of Britain's own financial position. Certainly, few hon. Members would want to be party to leaving Malta and its economy high and dry.
Yet, if it is true that we are in Malta for economic rather than for strategic reasons, is it not legitimate to ask how our earmarked resources should be used? The purpose of this Adjournment debate is to suggest that instead of superfluous naval and military installations, an equivalent level of financial resources should be spent on a British teacher-training college in Malta, a British school in Malta and a British hospital in Malta.
Before going further, I must make it clear that if it were a question of having a school in Malta or a new school in Glasgow, I would choose the new school in Glasgow as a priority; that if it were a question of having a teacher-training college in the South-East of England, or a teacher-training

college in Malta, I would choose the college in the South-East of England and that if it were a question of having a convalescent hospital in the West Midlands for those who suffer from bronchial diseases or having a similar hospital in Malta, the priority would clearly be the convalescent hospital in the West Midlands.
No sane politician, in the fortnight after the Chancellor of the Exchequer's statement, will advocate educational and health service frills of this kind in addition to what the national economy can bear, but we are not faced with an either-or situation like that. We are faced with another situation, and this is the anchor of my argument. Do we continue to use expenditure allocated to Malta for obsolete military purposes, or do we use for social purposes what we have to spend on Malta's economy? It strikes me that in the 1965 Malta situation we have a concrete opportunity to beat swords into ploughshares. Yet my efforts over the past months to get Government Departments to grasp this opportunity have not been happy.
Starting with a courteous interview with my right hon. Friend the Member for Leeds, East (Mr. Healey), I have been buffeted around the Ministry of Defence, the Commonwealth Relations Office, the Ministry of Overseas Development, the Scottish Office and the Department of Education and Science. I am not implying either or laziness, but it seems simply that Government Departments on this sort of issue where there unquestionably are inter-departmental boundaries have been like independent satrapies each operating in the absence of a total view of the conditions.
I give two examples to back up my charge. I went to the Department of Education and Science and the Minister told me that he had been advised by his chief inspector that if there was to be a school or teachers' training college abroad it should be in an "important" country like France or Germany. Yet the chief inspector clearly has no responsibility for the balance of payments. A training college on the Seine or the Rhine would be wonderful, but we do not have the unused accommodation in Paris or Coblenz, nor have we an obligation to help the economies of those cities as we have in Malta.
My second example comes from the Ministry of Overseas Development. Officials there shake their heads and say, A factory for £1 million would create more employment in Malta than a teachers' training college." This may, or I suspect it may not, be marginally true, but can they be certain of getting £1 million for such a project in our present financial position and economic circumstances? The fact is that educational establishments of the kind I have indicated in detail in correspondence with Ministers would create at least as much work as the Admiralty ever did.
If the Minister has any concrete ideas as to what a Ministry of Overseas Development financed plant in Malta might make at an economic cost relative to the rest of the Mediterranean world we would be happy to hear about it. I hope that these two examples are sufficient to show that there is a case for the one decision I am asking for this afternoon. The one decision I am asking for this afternoon is the setting up of an interdepartmental committee under, I suggest, a chairman representing the Ministry of Overseas Development to look at the Malta position as a whole and an approach through what I would wish to call one satrapy or another of a Government Department is simply not sufficient.
I have been more limited for time than I suspected I should be, because of the 20 minute ceremony which has just taken place in the House of Lords. There have been two educational objections. One is on the ground of continuity of staff, which does not hold water. The other more serious one is on the ground that there would not be available teaching practice for those British teachers who, perhaps, would spend the second year of teaching training at a British teaching training college in Malta. The answer to that is quite simply that it is not necessary in all three years to have teaching practice, or to let British teacher-trainees practice in Malta schools. The argument for a school abroad has been outlined in great detail by Mr. William Monaghan, in his presidential address to the Educational Institute of Scotland. On the argument that there is not enough educational interest in Malta, I refer to the remarks of the ex-Chief Inspector of Schools of the L.C.C., Dr. Alec Hay.
On the question of a hospital in Malta, one perhaps has to be a little more careful. Transport could be fairly cheaply provided by a number of shipping lines. I do not want to pick out one, but the costs of taking pupils in the now orthodox school ships is not very great. This is a practical and relevant idea of making swords into ploughshares. I ask the Government to be alert to every opportunity of using obsolete defence equipment for constructive social purposes.

Wing Commander Sir Eric Bullus: Before the hon. Gentleman sits down, may I ask him whether he has any support from the islanders themselves for the schemes he has suggested?

Mr. Dalyell: Yes. I have been in fairly close touch with them. I have been there many times, when I was working on the Schoolship "Dunera", and I know the set-up on the ground.

3.55 p.m.

Mr. John Hay: I am sure that the whole House wall feel that the obvious sincerity with which the hon. Member for West Lothian (Mr. Dalyell) holds his views is a reason for our listening to him with great patience this afternoon. I must say that I was a little surprised, as I expect was the Under-Secretary of State for Defence for the Royal Navy, that so much of this debate has turned, not upon the position of what is called on the Order Paper "the British base in Malta", but rather upon possible other developments in the social field. It is a pity, in some ways, that the hon. Gentleman did not first see exactly what it is that Britain has in Malta. The truth is that we no longer have a base in Malta.

Mr. Dalyell: I asked the Library for the exact current facilities. I was told that they were on the graded list.

Mr. Hay: I can only refer the hon. Gentleman to a number of documents which I propose to quote briefly in the course of the debate, beginning with the Statement on Defence, 1962, which set out the then Government's decisions about the base in Malta as it was then. I quote briefly from paragraph 16:
Britain no longer has to discharge alone her obligations in the Mediterranean. Today, the maritime forces of the allied nations are sharing a N.A.T.O. responsibility there. So


far as Britain is concerned, we also have a responsibility to contribute an air strike force in support of C.E.N.T.O. and, under our treaty, to help with the defence of Libya. We are adjusting our forces in the Mediterranean in recognition of the fact that our responsibilities there are shared with our allies; this process will continue. For the Royal Navy, the main base will be in Britain, but there will continue to be the need for forward operating facilities in Gibraltar and Malta. The Royal Air Force will continue to need airfield facilities at Gibraltar and Malta, and both places will continue to require small local garrisons.
Summing up the argument at the end of the paragraph appear these words:
In short, while we shall continue to maintain naval or air facilities with some land forces in Gibraltar, Malta and Cyprus, in none of these places need we base continuously large land forces for operations elsewhere; if necessary, such forces would be provided from Britain.
I mention all that to set the stage for what I want now to say. It is vitally important to understand that the position of Malta has been, as it were, downgraded from the days of the great Mediterranean Fleet before the last war when Malta was a major British base. It is now an extension really of the facilities which we have here at home in all three arms.
The hon. Gentleman said at the beginning of his speech, and later he repeated it, that there is no longer a strategic position for Britain to hold in the Mediterranean. With all respect to the hon. Gentleman, he should look at some of our obligations, particularly to Libya, which are referred to in that White Paper. I will not go into them all now, but we have certain obligations under the Anglo-Libyan Treaty of 1953. Everyone in this country knows that there have been enormously valuable finds of oil in Libya which might be under threat or attack at some future time.
It is, I believe, an important British interest that we ought to retain close to Libya the staging post, the springboard, whatever one likes to call it, to enable us to fulfil our obligations and protect our interests there. He would be a very bold man who would say with complete conviction that the base facilities that we have in Cyprus are likely to remain for the full length of the Agreement. I am very doubtful about it. If we lose Cyprus and if we have given up the facilities in Malta, as the hon. Member would like us to do,

we have nothing between Aden and Gibraltar at the other end of the Mediterranean. That is a situation which I would not want to contemplate.
I mentioned the 1962 White Paper, but I assume that this position is still held by Her Majesty's present Government, because in paragraph 20 of this year's defence White Paper these words appear and I would urge the hon. Member, with respect, to listen to them:
It would be politically irresponsible and economically wasteful if our bases were abandoned"—
I realise that Malta is not a base but, mutatis mutandis, the same argument applies—
while they were still needed to promote peace in the areas concerned, though we recognise that they can be maintained only in agreement with the local governments and peoples. Our presence in these bases, our Commonwealth ties, and the mobility of our forces, permit us to make a contribution towards peace-keeping in vast areas"—

ROYAL ASSENT

4.1 p.m.

Message to attend the Lords Commissioners;

The House went:—and, having returned;

Mr. SPEAKER reported the Royal Assent to:

1. Appropriation Act 1965.
2. Severn Bridge Tolls Act 1965.
3. Finance Act 1965.
4. Criminal Justice Act 1965.
5. Lost Property (Scotland) Act 1965.
6. Justices of the Peace Act, 1965.
7. Solicitors (Scotland) Act 1965.
8. Highways (Amendment) Act 1965.
9. Solicitors Act 1965.
10. Administration of Estates (Small Payments) Act 1965.
11. Control of Office and Industrial Development Act 1965.
12. British Nationality Act 1965.
13. Shops (Early Closing Days) Act 1965.
14. Gas Act 1965.
15. Carriage of Goods by Road Act 1965.
16. Overseas Development and Service Act 1965.
17. Criminal Procedure (Scotland) Act 1965.
18. Housing (Amendment) (Scotland) Act 1965.


19. Local Government (Scotland) Act 1947 (Amendment) Act 1965.
20. Public Health (Notification of Births) Act 1965.
21. Statutory Orders (Special Procedure) Act 1965.
22. Firearms Act 1965.
23. Backing of Warrants (Republic of Ireland) Act 1965.
24. Highlands and Islands Development (Scotland) Act 1965.
25. Merchant Shipping Act 1965.
26. Trade Disputes Act 1965.
27. Registration of Births, Deaths and Marriages (Scotland) Act 1965.
28. Monopolies and Mergers Act 1965.
29. National Insurance Act 1965.
30. National Insurance (Industrial Injuries) Act 1965.
31. Family Allowances Act 1965.
32. National Health Service Contributions Act 1965.
33. Statute Law Revision (Consequential Repeals) Act 1965.
34. Compulsory Purchase Act 1965.
35. Nuclear Installations Act 1965.
36. Ministerial Salaries Consolidation Act 1965.
37. New Towns Act 1965.
38. Gas (Borrowing Powers) Act 1965.
39. Judges' Remuneration Act 1965.
40. Redundancy Payments Act 1965.
41. Public Works Loans Act 1965.
42. Commons Registration Act 1965.
43. International Monetary Fund Act 1965.
44. Hire-Purchase Act 1965.
45. Hire-Purchase (Scotland) Act 1965.
46. Salmon and Freshwater Fisheries Act 1965.
47. Criminal Procedure (Attendance of Witnesses) Act 1965.
48. Coatbridge Burgh Extension Order Confirmation Act 1965.
49. Writers to the Signet Widows' Fund Order Confirmation Act 1965.
50. Royal Four Towns Fishing Order Confirmation Act 1965.
51. British Waterways Order Confirmation Act 1965.
52. Welsh Office Provisional Order Confirmation (Llanelly) Act 1965.

53. Ministry of Housing and Local Government Provisional Order Confirmation (Melton Mowbray) Act 1965.
54. Ministry of Housing and Local Government Provisional Order Confirmation (Newton-le-Willows) Act 1965.
55. Ministry of Housing and Local Government Provisional Order Confirmation (Rotherham) Act 1965.
56. University of Leeds Act 1965.
57. Greater London Council (General Powers) Act 1965.
58. British Railways Act 1965.
59. Birmingham Corporation Act 1965.
60. British Waterways Act 1965.
61. Gulf Oil Refining Act 1965.
62. Greater London Council (Money) Act 1965.
63. Aberdare Markets and Town Hall Act 1965.
64. Flintshire County Council (Higher Ferry Saltney Footbridge) Act 1965.
65. Crude Oil Terminals (Humber) Act 1965.
66. Devon County Council Act 1965.
67. Poole Corporation Act 1965.
68. Saint Laurence, Catford Act 1965.
69. Huddersfield Corporation Act 1965.
70. Rochester Bridge Act 1965.
71. Brighton Skydeck Act 1965.
72. Conway Corporation Act 1965.
73. Pembrokeshire County Council Act 1965.
74. Rochdale Canal Act 1965.
75. Birkenhead Corporation (Mersey Tunnel Approaches) Act 1965.
76. City of London (Various Powers) Act 1965.
77. Mersey Tunnel (Liverpool/Wallasey) &amp;c. Act 1965.
78. London Transport Act 1965.
79. Manchester Corporation Act 1965.

And to the following Measure, passed under the provisions of the Church of England Assembly (Powers) Act. 1919:

Prayer Book (Miscellaneous Provisions) Measure, 1965.

BRITISH BASE, MALTA (FUTURE)

Question again proposed, That this House do now adjourn.

4.25 p.m.

Mr. Hay: Before the House went to another place, I was reminding it that in the Defence White Paper clear acknowledgment was given of our obligations and the need for the maintenance of bases and other military facilities to permit us to carry those obligations into effect if required.
That is the answer to the hon. Member for West Lothian as to the continued need for these facilities in Malta. Of course, I realise, as the House does, that his main interest has been to ensure that what he called "social development" in Malta should be extended and expanded. That is something with which I think all of us, in all quarters of the House, would agree. I would remind the hon. Gentleman—and, in view of the loss of time in this debate, I will not seek to quote from the various documents—of the various agreements entered into between the then Government and the Government of Malta in July of last year, when independence was obtained.
There is a financial agreement which obliged Britain to contribute something like £50 million over 10 years. Article 3 of that agreement specifically referred to a development plan. If one looks at the headings in the development plan, one sees references to higher and technical education, and to various other aspects of the sort of thing which the hon. Gentleman has in mind.
We must not lose sight of the other obligation we have to Malta, under the agreement, of mutual defence and assistance. This agreement was made at the same time as the other documents relating to independence. There is a clear obligation placed upon us, and it is one which I would suggest the Government should consider very carefully, because it is something which I do not believe that the people of this country would want lightly thrown aside, leaving apart altogether the possible dangers there may be in the Mediterranean, dangers which I have already outlined in relation to Libya and so on.
We are discussing Malta in the defence context, and I should like to ask the Under-Secretary to acknowledge that there is a considerable degree of feeling in Malta, and among a lot of people in this country who know something about it, about the position of what is called the Royal Malta Artillery. This is a regiment of considerable age, which has rendered valiant service in two world wars. I am told that there has been, over the last nine months, a complete ban on recruiting to the Royal Malta Artillery. It is a unit of the British Army, and although the Under-Secretary has responsibility principally for the Royal Navy I hope that he will tell the Secretary of State that we on this side feel somewhat anxious about the situation. There seems to be no good reason for this ban on recruiting and no good reason which it should continue. I hope that it will be taken off as soon as possible.

4.28 p.m.

The Under-Secretary of State for Defence for the Royal Navy (Mr. J. P. W. Mallalieu): I am not quite certain to which of the three debates we have just had I should be replying. I think that perhaps I had better not mention anything that has taken place in your absence, Mr. Speaker, but deal solely with the two rather separate aspects of this issue which have been brought to the notice of the House today.
First, strictly on defence matters, I will deal with the Royal Malta Artillery. There is a section of the Royal Malta Artillery carrying out a transport rôle for B.A.O.R. In recent months there has been some doubt whether that rôle should continue to be played. I understand that this is the main reason why, for the time being at any rate, there has been a halt in enlistment. So far as I know, there is still a future, at any rate on a smaller scale, for that magnificent body of men who have done great service in times gone by.
It is quite true, as my hon. Friend the Member for West Lothian (Mr. Dalyell) has said, that there has been some rundown in the use of Malta, particularly as a naval base. As the hon. Gentleman for Henley (Mr. Hay) pointed out, in the 1962 White Paper, Malta was declared to be no longer a base, but a position


for forward operating facilities. That has meant a rundown in terms of the Navy. During the last three years the numbers of members of the Royal Navy and civilians working for it has gone down from 10,000 to 5,000. So far as we can foresee, by 1967 the figures will have been reduced to about 3,500, and they will be maintained at that level.
While the Navy has been running down there, the Army and the Royal Air Force have not. In the view of the Ministry of Defence, there is still a need to maintain considerable Air Force and Army facilities there. Therefore, I should not like my hon. Friend the Member for West Lothian to assume that money is being spent on things which are obsolete in Service terms. This is not so. He said—and I am sure that the House agrees with this—that we in this country have a social obligation to Malta.
As the hon. Member for Henley mentioned, we have recognised that already. Between 1959 and 1964 this country made about £29½ million available for development in Malta. This has been put, not into obsolete things, but into new industries which have produced work for Maltese. About 2,500 Maltese are now employed in these new industries. During the next 10 years the figure will be increased to £50 million. We hope that that will provide employment for at least double the number already employed—

Mr. Hay: I want to get this clear because, with respect, I think that what the hon. Gentleman has said is inaccurate. I understood that under the independence agreements of last year £50 million, spread over the subsequent 10 years until 1974, was allocated or earmarked. The hon. Gentleman is now speaking of a further £50 million for the next 10 years.

Mr. Mallalieu: No.

Mr. Hay: Is this an announcement of a change of policy?

Mr. Mallalieu: No. I am stating the position as it is now.
The sum of £29½ million was spent in the period 1959–64. From 1965 to 1974 there will be a further £50 million. There is no new announcement. I am just reminding my hon. Friend the Member for West Lothian that a great deal is

being done to assist in social matters and in developing the economy in Malta. Probably that is the best help that we can give. The tourist trade in Malta—that lovely island—has enormous possibilities if we can help in building up the hotels and other services. The future of the light industries in Malta is also good.
But that should not necessarily preclude doing the sort of thing which my hon. Friend suggested about schools. There is, however, a Service difficulty here. As I understand him, if the Navy gets out of an establishment, he wants the establishment to be turned into a school. We cannot do that off our own bat because, under the independence agreement, whenever the Services give up an establishment—either buildings or land—they are compelled to hand it back to the Government of Malta. Such establishments as we have vacated are already in the possession of the Government of Malta and are under their control. Therefore, if we were to want to do what my hon. Friend has suggested, it would be necessary to get the co-operation and agreement of the Government of Malta. I do not say that this would be a great difficulty, but it is a limiting factor on what we can do independently.
As my hon. Friend the Member for West Lothian said, he has had a good deal of correspondence with my hon. and right hon. Friends in the Department of Education and Science and elsewhere. He will know that the Department of Education and Science finds itself in some difficulty about agreeing to the ideas which he has put forward, especially about the school for British children. He has put forward something which is new to me—the idea of a teacher-training college there. I can say honestly that we in the Ministry of Defence should welcome it, for a number of reasons. We are most anxious to get Maltese recruits into the Royal Navy. Unhappily, we have had to fail a good many of them on the educational test. Anything which would improve the supply of teachers in Malta, and hence improve the standard of education there, would be certain of getting our best support.
I notice that my hon. Friend is showing the impatience of an enthusiast—and I do not blame him—at the delays which he finds in Government Departments in


at once leaping to his suggestions. I do not think that he is being altogether fair. This is not a new idea. He has pioneered similar ideas on many occasions and has put something like these ideas into practice with enormous success, but they involve a good deal of money and a question of priorities, as he admits. It seems to me perfectly reasonable for the Departments concerned to look at my hon. Friend's ideas and, if it seems to them all that there is a reasonable chance of this being a viable proposition, then to get together by forming an interdepartmental committee, for which my hon. Friend is calling today.
I have the authority of my colleagues for saying that I do not want my hon. Friend to think that he is merely being fobbed off. This looks at first sight a very good idea. There are difficulties about it. We want to find out what the real difficulties are and how they can be overcome. We shall examine the idea with good will, and the points made by my hon. Friend during his speech will be noted by the Ministers concerned.

FOOTWEAR INDUSTRY (EXPORTS)

4.36 p.m.

Sir Geoffrey de Freitas: I am grateful to hon. Members, in all parts of the House, for making their speeches much shorter than they intended so that I should have this last Adjournment debate. We started off this morning with the difficulty of a great number of statements from the Front Bench and then we lost 23 minutes on a Royal Commission. I am all in favour of ritual and ceremony, such as when we have to attend the opening of Parliament and go to the House of Lords, but I regarded that lost 23 minutes as a reflection on us, as it is simply inefficient.
The British footwear industry is an important industry. It produces 200 million pairs of shoes a year and it is the biggest boot and shoe industry in Europe. It employs about 115,000 workers, more than half of whom are in the East Midlands, where the industry has been established for a long time.
We in this country are great buyers of boots and shoes. The average man or woman buys 4·3 pairs a year. Britain is

the second highest consumer in the world, the United States being the first. It is reckoned that about half the shoes bought by women are bought because of changes of fashion and not for reasons of replacement. However, it is not about consumption but about exhort and the industry that I wish to speak this afternoon.
Our industry is built on a firm base. There is a very good and enterprising combined association and employers' organisation and there is an excellent trade union. This has brought about remarkably good relations in the industry. Except for the General Strike, there has not been a large scale stoppage in the industry since 1895.
We also have the world's leading research establishment, the Shoes and Allied Trades Research Association. It is established in the heart of the footwear industry in my constituency in Kettering. Last month, Her Majesty the Queen visited the establishment and, I understand, was most interested in what she saw. Certainly, the work of this Association, which includes laboratory research and consulting services on practical problems, as well as being an arbiter on complaints by the general public against the industry, is recognised all over the world. When I visited the establishment I was fascinated to see the trials. Because of the achievement of this research organisation and of the go-ahead nature of the industry, a fact which I cannot over-emphasise, we have taken the lead in many techniques of manufacture. The industry is a credit to this country. The industry has a good record for exports, especially on the leader side as opposed to the rubber side. This half year exports are 19 per cent. up in value on those of last year and they will probably amount to more than £15 million by the end of the year.
Our exports go to three different places in quantities of roughly equal value, one-third to Europe, one-third to North America, and one-third to the rest of the world, including the Commonwealth. When we ask the industry, "Where are you likely to extend your exports most?" the answer is, Europe. The industry's journal for May said this:
Europe is our best potential area for expansion, and advantage has been taken of the reducing E.F.T.A. tariff. Although the E.E.C. external tariff on footwear is higher


than ours, some inroads have been made there, but until Britain enters the Common Market progress will be limited.
As to the other part of Europe—Eastern Europe and the U.S.S.R.—the industry recognises that there are great possibilities, but of course the quota system of trade makes it almost impossible to forecast what is likely to happen.
What can the Government do to help? The first point is, of course, through our Ministries. The basis of everything is that it is the duty of the Board of Trade at home and the Diplomatic Service abroad to foster our export trade. I know from what I have seen in missions abroad that trade promotion is interesting, and even those who join a mission and who are not interested in trade, when they get there, and if they get the right leadership, become very interested in it. I want my hon. Friend the Minister of State—I am most grateful to him for coming here this afternoon—to urge his hon. and right hon. Friends when they visit foreign countries and travel abroad—and I hope, indeed, that Members of Parliament will do so also—to make a point of visiting the commercial sections of our high commissions and embassies to show how important they regard it, and to emphasise to the British business communities the fact that they exist.
Secondly, I ask him, when the Government are making trade agreements, not to regard this industry as something which is expendable in negotiation in order to gain some advantage in the export of capital goods. I take three illustrations from three countries. I understand that trade negotiations are going on with the Irish Republic. We must not accept the severe quota restriction we have on our exports to Ireland, of only 165,000 pairs a year. I know it is more than the 1966 quota which is only 20,000. It was stated in a very curious way as 40,000 pieces.
I suppose we must accept the fact that logically footwear for two one-legged men counts as much as footwear for one ordinary mart. However, the fact is that the quota is ridiculously small and we should not take it. Then, Japan. The Foreign Secretary is going to Japan in the autumn, I believe. We must not accept their present total quota of a few thousand pounds worth of footwear imports for

the whole world. That is how Japan shuts out our exports. In Canada there is an enormous tariff, higher than the United States', and in our discussions with Canada we must remedy that.
Thirdly, in the Kennedy Round there are rumours that some of the countries at Geneva have asked all footwear to be excluded. I hope that we can have an assurance that we will not give in to that.
Fourthly, I wish that the Government could find some way of financing consignment stocks. E.C.G.D. cover for capital goods is admirable. It was good, and it has been improved, and I am grateful for that, but it should also cover consignment stocks up to £50,000 worth of stock. One cannot expect the average exporter from this country to be able to carry that in the United States, for example, without long-term low interest assistance.
Fifthly, there is the problem of the working of the docks. I shall not stress this because I know that the Government are well aware of the shortcomings in the docks, but the position must be improved. It is not only good in itself that it should be improved, but it will also prevent the inefficient exporter from blaming his inefficiency in shipping on the chaos in the docks. It will be good in itself, and it will also get rid of the excuse for inefficiency. It is a great industry and in exports it is a tremendous help to us.
Mr. Speaker, raising as I do the last Adjournment, I hope that you will have, as I hope I shall have, a pleasant Recess.

4.46 p.m.

Mr. Peter Emery: I congratulate the right hon. Member for Kettering (Sir G. de Freitas) on speaking about this industry in the able and sensible way that he has done.
I have one question to pose, which, I think, underlines what the right hon. Gentleman said. The industry believes that its greatest export expansion potential lies within Europe. Many of us who are associated with Europe know that in the negotiations for trade between E.F.T.A. and the E.E.C., many of our friends in E.F.T.A. expect us to take a lead. We are, after all, the largest partner in E.F.T.A. I hope, therefore, that in respect not only of footwear, but of other items, the Government will make


every effort, in individual agreements with the E.E.C., to try to ensure that E.F.T.A. trade within the E.E.C. is expanded. I believe that footwear is an excellent example of the need for greater co-operation between the two trading areas.

4.47 p.m.

The Minister of State, Board of Trade (Mr. Edward Redhead): It is appropriate that my right hon. Friend the Member for Kettering (Sir G. de Freitas) should have chosen this very important topic for this last Adjournment debate before we depart for the Summer Recess, because his constituency is one of the principal footwear centres.
I should like to express my appreciation of the very constructive way in which my right hon. Friend has approached this matter, and also my appreciation of the fact that he has had but a limited time in which to deploy the various points to which he alluded. He will, likewise, appreciate that my reply will have to be somewhat abbreviated, but if it is I hope he will not think that I am treating the points that he has made with anything less than the full consideration which they justifiably deserve.
I join my right hon. Friend in acknowledging the tremendous importance of the footwear industry to the country's economy, and the value of the quite significant contribution which it makes to our export earnings. I also join him in paying tribute to the industry for the undoubtedly remarkable technological advances which have taken place in recent years, which speak very highly for the progressive and forward-looking character of those who are engaged in it, on both sides.
In particular, I join my right hon. Friend in paying tribute to the good labour relations which exist within the industry. They are a credit to the manufacturers both management and workers. I also pay tribute to the part that is played by the trade and research establishments of the industry, to which my right hon. Friend rightly drew attention.
It is a matter of pride that the British footwear industry is among the most up-to-date in the world. This position has been created by modernising plant and equipment, a readiness to experiment and to introduce new techniques—setting

an example which could well be followed by many other industries with the same commendable zeal. If this were to be followed it would, considerably ease many of our current economic problems.
Here it has been the means whereby production has risen despite a diminishing labour force. As my right hon. Friend said, in 1964 production reached the prodigious figure of 202 million pairs. My right hon. Friend spoke particularly about the contribution of the industry to exports. He rightly said that there has been a significant improvement in recent years—over £;14 million worth of exports of footwear in 1964 compared with £12·7 million in 1963. I am happy to say that all the indications are that exports are still rising.
But it is never my purpose, with the responsibilities that I hold today, to encourage anybody to believe that he can look with complacency upon his existing performance. I am sure that those in the footwear industry are not complacent, because these exports, after all, represent only a little more than 6 per cent. of the total production of the industry, and could be considerably improved. What has been achieved is the contribution of a comparatively few firms. I understand that one group in the industry, representative of only 18 per cent. of total production, was responsible for 52 per cent. of our 1964 footwear exports. If this example could be widely emulated we might soon see a welcome return to the position that obtained before 1960, when we were net exporters instead of net importers of footwear.
Early this year additional Government finance was made available for the encouragement of exports, in a number of ways which were announced by my right hon. Friend the President of the Board of Trade. I am glad to acknowledge that the British Footwear Manufacturers' Federation has been quick to take advantage of these new facilities, and, in particular, has taken advantage of the financial assistance which has made possible the market surveys undertaken by the Federation's overseas manager.
Financial assistance is also currently being arranged for inward missions and for participation in overseas shoe trade fairs. I am glad to note and acknowledge the contribution which the industry hopes


to make in the way of exhibitions to be held in the near future in Gothenberg, Dusseldorf and Chicago. I hope that the industry will respond to the progressive lead which has been given by the Federation in this connection.
The difficulties that exist in connection with exports are admitted. I acknowledge that the barriers which have been erected—tariff barriers and others—are formidable. I also acknowledge that to the extent that the Government can assist the industry to overcome some of those difficulties it is their duty to do so. Nevertheless, I am certain that the industry can and will regard these obstacles as a challenge rather than as a deterrent.
My right hon. Friend has referred to some of the assistance that is available, and to the fact that the industry has been glad to avail itself of it. He has drawn attention to a number of factors which affect the performance of the footwear industry. He touched upon the question of the Common Market. The industry acknowledges that it is to Europe that it must look for the most significant potentialities for increasing its exports. I also note the point made on this by the hon. Member for Reading (Mr. Peter Emery).
Hon. Members will not expect me to dilate upon the question of this country's position in relation to the Common Market. The Government's point of view has repeatedly been made clear. Indeed, it was made clear by the Prime Minister only yesterday, when speaking from this Dispatch Box. It is only necessary for me to say that it remains our objective to see established in Europe a wider market embracing the United Kingdom, the countries of the Community, the members of E.F.T.A. and other European countries. I am glad to feel that the industry has been able to take advantage of the facilities that are available through E.F.T.A.
My hon. Friend also referred to the need to consider the possibilities of exports to Eastern Europe and to urge other Ministers to lose no opportunity in trade discussions of pressing for more generous admission of British footwear. That, let me assure him, is not absent from our minds. I am sure that my hon. Friend will be gratified to know that I recently visited Poland and made a particular point of the possibilities of our own footwear industry to supply some of

Poland's needs. I have heard since my return of an order that has been placed for British footwear, the quantity of which I do not know, and I was encouraged to know that the Polish authorities have been persuaded to look in our direction for the possibilities of expansion.
My hon. Friend urges me to make a point of seeing the commercial sections of our posts when visiting countries overseas. Let me assure him that in all the visits I have made in the prosecution of my tasks I have made a particular point on every occasion of seeing them.

Sir G. de Freitas: I appreciate that my hon. Friend does that. My point is that he will ask his colleagues not connected with the Board of Trade at all to do the same thing.

Mr. Redhead: In that connection, may I say that I have had the advantage of special conferences with all other Departments that have any connection with trade at all outside the Board of Trade, and that is one of the points that I have stressed with my Ministerial colleagues.

Sir G. de Freitas: Even those who have nothing to do with trade?

Mr. Redhead: Yes, even if they have nothing to do with trade.
I cannot comment on the subject of Irish quotas, but I would ask my hon. Friend to bear in mind that the situation is very much in our minds at the moment. He will appreciate that there are currently negotiations with the Irish Republic and, on my hon. Friend's point in that regard as it affects footwear, I can assure him that that is one of the points which are going to be pursued in the course of those discussions.
He touched also upon the Kennedy Round and urged that we should do whatever we can to rebut the attempt on the part of some participants, as he alleges is the case, to exempt or except footwear from the operation of any tariff reductions that may be negotiated under the Kennedy Round. He will appreciate, first, that we have no control of the exceptions lists put forward by other participating countries, but it will be borne in mind that every one of those lists of the main countries has to be justified in those discussions on grounds of overriding national interest. I can only ask


my hon. Friend to accept that his point will be borne in mind in the examinations of such exceptions lists which are now going on.
He made reference to the E.C.G.D. cover for consignment stocks. In answer to a Question from the hon. Member for Louth (Sir C. Osborne) on the 8th July, I explained that it is not possible to extend bank guarantees to cover the financing of consignment stocks abroad. Bank guarantees were designed to facilitate the provision of finance where a contract of sale has already been entered into. It does not apply to goods held on consignment. I hope that the industry will still look to E.C.G.D. for facilities and for the very much wider facilities that have recently been provided, and that they will avail themselves to the fullest extent of the facilities that are there to assist them in expanding the export trade.
I am sure the hon. Gentleman will appreciate that I cannot in the time cover all the points to which he made reference, but they will all be studied with great care and consideration. I would not, for example, wish to dilate on the subject

of dock delays, except to say that we accept that they are a very serious problem.
In view of the statement made by my right hon. Friend the Minister of Labour earlier, my hon. Friend will appreciate that the Government are now possessed of the very important and far-reaching Devlin Report, and he will be also aware that a "little Neddy" has been set up to consider the whole process of transport from factory to ship. These are very, very important studies warranting the fullest and most careful consideration which, accordingly, the Government will give to them. In so far as the footwear industry is involved, I hope that my hon. Friend will feel a sense of satisfaction that that serious consideration is to be given.
I thank my hon. Friend for his contribution, and I assure him that his point of view and his observations will be borne very much in mind.

Question put and agreed to.

Adjourned accordingly at Five o'clock, till Tuesday, 26th October, pursuant to the Resolution of the House of 3rd August.